Change
by Blinky the Tree Frog
Summary: Yes, this is still going. Honest. Apparently, this chapter is rather creepy. Heaven knows why people would say that.
1. Part One

_Well, this is my first ever Buffy fic, having until now mainly written comics stuff. Enjoy, and comments are appreciated!_**  
  
Disclaimer:**  
The Buffyverse belongs to Mutant Enemy as far as I'm aware. No money being made, no infringement intended.  
  
_Spoilers for Season Seven up to at least Episode 12 (Potential). It's set right after._  
  
**Change****  
****  
****Part One**  
  
_"I__ was never cool in school__  
__I'm sure you don't remember me_"  
- Ben Folds Five, Underground  
  
Sunnydale was...   
  
Well, not quiet. When describing a place that sits next to a Hellmouth and has at some point or another had half the demon population of earth go through it, 'quiet' is possibly not a word you could ever use. Especially when for the last few weeks and unknown to most of the town's inhabitants, a desperate war between the Slayer and the First Evil that had ever existed had been happening under their noses.   
  
Sunnydale was never quiet. But it was quiet_er_. The first and most horrible of evils was currently in retreat, and the Slayer and the small group of potential slayers she was attempting to protect were using the time to train for the battle ahead. The town's normal demon population could feel the tension hanging in the air and were mostly holding their breaths and waiting for the opportunity to take sides. It was calmer than usual, certainly, but one got the impression that it was more like the calm in the eye of the hurricane, and everyone knew that that never lasted.  
  
They were right too, but the thing that disrupted _this_ night's calm, that threw itself through a bright white spatial rift and landed in a heap on the lawn of one of Sunnydale's smaller cemeteries, wasn't the greatest and First Evil of all time. Not yet. This was some a little less dangerous, a little less calculating and a little more _hungry._  
  
It had been here before.  
  
*********  
  
Buffy Summers walked up to the cemetery gates and then stopped and turned around, causing several nervous potential slayers to nearly plow into her. They hastily pulled themselves back and she gave them an apologetic look.  
  
"Sorry guys, I'm just gonna give everyone a few warnings before we go in here, okay?"  
  
Molly, a dark haired girl with a broad British accent, looked mildly alarmed. "Warnings? I thought you said we were going to meet some demons that _aren't_ going to kill us!"  
  
Buffy gave her a smile that she hoped was firm but reassuring. The whole Mentor/Teacher role was something she was still trying to get used to. "Yes, and that's actually what I'm going to warn you about. I want everyone to be careful not to be too intimidating here, okay?"  
  
"Oh, that is _so_ not gonna be a problem" There was a mumbled chorus of agreement.  
  
"Okay, quiet people. And Rona, I'm being serious here. The reason I'm doing this is to show you that there are a few demon species out here that are generally harmless. Not always harmless, I stress. If you're damn sure that they're the ones responsible for the baby-smuggling ring you've just broken up, okay, fine, deal with them. But even if you're the Slayer, you're not omnipotent. You have a certain amount of time and energy, and if you spend it all hunting down demons that aren't hurting a flea then you're going to be in a hell of a lot of trouble when you come across one that _is_ a real bad guy. Being a Slayer's not just beating people up, it's also using your brain."  
  
She waited until they had all started to nod, and then continued. "Now, these guys aren't demons I know personally, but they know I'm the Slayer. They're nervous and probably scared. Clem's done a lot to convince them to be here, mostly by pointing out that teaching people not to kill them is a good thing, but they're still going to be jumpy as hell. Basically, all I'm asking is for you to be careful. You start waving weapons at them and they'll be gone in two seconds, and there goes the lesson. They're doing us a favour, okay?"   
  
More nodding. She took a deep breath and turned to the vampire who stood silently beside her. "Anything to add, Spike?"  
  
"Reckon you've pretty much covered it. Might want to hurry along, though. Clem said they'd be here at half past and I can't see them waiting around."  
  
"Right, right. Okay people, this way..."   
  
She opened the gates and the small crowd walked through.   
  
*************  
  
He watched from the lawn as the rift behind him twisted and closed. Well, _that_ had been exhilarating! Also kind of draining and he was hungry as hell but... Geezuz! Jumping through time and space, what a fucking rush! Honestly, he should have eaten something that could do this sooner. Okay, so technically finding demons that could warp time and space wasn't exactly easy and he'd pretty much lucked out even grabbing this one but... Fuck!  
  
He grinned maniacally and pulled himself to his feet. So. Jumped through time and space, really hungry, hideously tired but still wired as all hell and... where was this? Graveyard?  
  
He rolled his eyes and then inexplicably let out a hysterical giggle. Graveyard, of course. After all, if he'd managed to aim right this was Sunnydale, home of the hell hounds and vampires and things that go bump in the night and sudden murders left and right. There were graveyards _everywhere_ in Sunnydale. Gave the demons somewhere to hang, he supposed. Hee.  
  
He really was hungry. God, that took a lot out of him! Definitely won't be able to do that again soon. Need to recharge. Need a pick me up. Need to _eat_. Find something to eat, gorge self, get some rest, then go and slaughter annoying brother. Then go have fun. Terror! Murder! Power!  
  
God, this was fun. Honestly, he had no _idea_ how he'd managed to survive as a plain old human for so long. It was just...  
  
He stopped, and then frowned and sniffed the air. Oh goody. _Food_.  
  
************  
  
The demon was green, and appeared to have bits of silly string attached randomly all over his body. He also looked about as nervous as was possible for a green demon covered in silly string to look.  
  
His eyes darted over his watching audience. "So... ummm... as I said, I've got this good job disposing of hazardous waste from this company... because of.... you know, the whole 'eats anything' thing. And I live... I've got a flat. And... and a hermit crab. In the flat."  
  
Buffy smiled in a hopefully encouraging way. "A hermit crab?"  
  
"Yeah, it's... like a pet. You know? I tried... once I tried getting a cat but it got mixed in with the pot when the guys came over for poker and it just..."  
  
"Uh, okay Ned. That's great. I appreciate you talking here..."  
  
"I think Gathazirat might have eaten it, actually. I mean, the bastard _swore_ he didn't but personally, can you really trust a guy with empathic manipulation?"  
  
The smile didn't slip an inch. And what do you know, she _had_ learnt something at the Doublemeat Palace. Fake sincerity, coming right up. "Okay folks, that's Ned. Colololo demon, as evidenced by the green skin and tufts of.... tufts all over his body. Generally a nice guy, certainly not worth your slaying time. Anyone have any questions for Ned?"  
  
Vi tentatively put up a hand. "It's... it's nice to meet you, Ned. Umm... I was just wondering... do demons often keep pets?"  
  
There was a snort and Buffy flicked her eyes over the group. "Kennedy? Something to say?"  
  
She looked vaguely defiant. "I just thought... I mean, what kind of question is that? Aren't we supposed to be asking strategic things, or questions about how to identify them or..."  
  
"I was just curious!" Vi looked upset.  
  
"Yeah, well I'm just saying..."  
  
One of the others leapt to the defence. "It could be relevant, you know. Like maybe only the nicer demons keep pets and the evil ones..."  
  
"Oh, the evil ones keep pets too." Ned said helpfully. "Like there was this guy I knew once, Tyzac demon, he kept this full grown Komodo Dragon in his flat. Dunno how the hell it fit in there. Dunno how the hell he even got it, come to think of it..."  
  
Buffy sighed as a full-blown argument started up and flicked her eyes over to where Spike and Clem were watching. "And what are you guys grinning at?"  
  
"Just thinking about what a nice night it is luv."  
  
"Riiiiight..."  
  
"Hey, and maybe _I_ should get me a pet. Seems to be all the rage for your average non-evil demon. What do you think Clem, a nice kitty cat?"  
  
"What, as a _pet_? I don't know, Spike. I mean, it'd be kinda tempting, living with something that's so delicious..."  
  
Spike quirked an eyebrow in vague amusement. "Oh yeah, dunno how you could do that..."  
  
Buffy shook her head and tried to hide her smile. Time for the next guy up, before the whole thing got out of control...  
  
She raised her voice. "Okay people, lets hear from... Gaserack? Is that how you say it? Right, everyone say a big hello to Gaserack!"  
  
************  
  
He paced through the cemetery, silent and damn near invisible. Literally damn near invisible, actually, because he'd eaten a Tilom demon just the other night and acquired it's camouflage effect, an odd light bending trick which made him terribly difficult to spot. God knows it had taken long enough to find the one he'd ended up devouring. Why was it that the demons with the neatest tricks were always the hardest to catch?  
  
He swallowed a snort of laughter. Stupid question really, answered itself. He sniffed the air. Okay, several of them there, and they were close. Gently going now. Don't want to scare them, at least until you rip them into bloody shreds and eat them. Scout first.  
  
He peered through the bushes and blinked. The hell?  
  
*************  
  
"...and as a proud member of the Quasuio religion I would never even consider harming a human. In the web of life they are but insects and to do such a thing would be to lower myself beyond compare in the eyes of the great and almighty Quas. All hail Quas! Bringer of darkness! Maker of small reptiles, donuts and other delicious fare! For is it not said by Quas himself..."  
  
Buffy stared at the latest speaker with a faint air of disbelief. Seated next to her on the wooden bench, Clem hissed another apology.  
  
"I'm really sorry about this Buffy, honest. I mean, I had no idea the guy was such a fanatic. He seemed nice enough when I saw him around..."  
  
Spike looked like he wanted to kill something for possibly the first time since he'd acquired his shiny new soul. "He's been going on about his bloody god for the last 20 minutes! For Christ's sake Buffy, make him stop!"  
  
She shot him a frown. "I tried! Twice I tried! He keeps saying he's just got a little more to go and then he's off again!"  
  
"Can't you kill him or something?"  
  
"Spike! This thing's supposed to be about demons you _don't_ kill..."  
  
"Yeah, but I'm just saying..."  
  
Clem sighed. "I really am sorry about this, guys..."  
  
"...and Quas did say to all his followers. Hail this one! For he has skin of the darkest indigo and tentacles of the finest aquamarine..."  
  
*************  
  
He stared, nonplussed, at the scene before him. A small group of young girls sat on the cemetery grass, alternatively watching or looking bored by a thin purple demon who was making a speech that seemed to involve an awful lot of gesturing. Off to one side was an even smaller group of other demons, and sitting on a bench at the back was... wait a second... He leaned forward, very slowly and quietly.  
  
Buffy Summers!   
  
That was Buffy Summers! And she was sitting here amongst a bunch of demons and teenage girls in a cemetery. At night. And... and... damn! And she was entirely capable of kicking his butt. I mean yeah, he'd certainly... changed... a lot since she'd last seen him, but she had totally snapped the necks of several savage hellhounds! This completely sucked.   
  
He frowned and leaned back. Okay, think. At least _try_ and think, even though he was so hungry and tired and... shit, shit, shit. Stupid Buffy spoiling his meal. Okay, he didn't really know why she was here, but everyone knew that she'd been mixed up with some weird stuff. It wasn't really important why she was there, what was important was that there was some really tasty looking prey over there and she was sitting there blocking his access. He peeked back through the bushes. Hmmm... well, that Colololo demon was standing right near the edge there. Maybe if he was really quick, and really quiet, he could grab and run, and Buffy wouldn't even notice until it was too late. Yeah, that's what he'd do. Worth a try, any way...  
  
He twisted his face into a predatory grin and edged forward. The hunt was always the best bit.  
  
  
*************  
  
  



	2. Part Two

**Part Two**  
  
_"The tides that had once carried you away__  
__They bring you back again today_"  
- Just The Way It Is, Baby: The Rembrandts  
  
"...And Tilisee, the prophet of Quas, did stand up in front of the unbeliever, and he did say, "Be silent and humble! For Quas watches you even now!" And he did reply, "Oh my god, it hurts, it hurts!" for he had been run through with a five foot sword..."  
  
"All right, that's it. I'm going to clock him one."  
  
She reached out a hand and grabbed him before he managed to make it off the bench. "Spike, _sit down_ . We've still got three more guys to give their talk. What do you think they're going to do if you go up and hammer their pal?"  
  
"If he's always like this? Applaud, I reckon."  
  
Clem nodded helpfully. "He's not exactly best buddies with anyone here. They probably wouldn't even care..."  
  
"Clem! You're the guy who invited him, for heaven's sake."  
  
"Yeah, well, you know, we all make mistakes..."   
  
"Okay, we'll give him five more minutes. If he's still going then, I give you full permission to clock him. And I have to say..." She stopped abruptly and frowned.  
  
Spike raised an eyebrow. "Something wrong, pet?"  
  
She'd gone tense, standing up from the bench and slowly scanning the nearby bushes.  
  
Clem looked worried. "Buffy?"  
  
The Slayer held up a hand. "Shh... I can... I can sense something. Someone... Something was watching us... From over there."  
  
Spike cautiously turned to look. "Can't see nothing there now..."  
  
And Clem frowned. "What happened to Ned?"  
  
************  
  
"Mmmmm! Mummmph!"  
  
He slid back from the group as quickly and as quietly as he could, one hand locked around the struggling demon and another clamped over its mouth. The stupid thing was about a foot bigger than him, but the extra muscular strength he'd obtained from chomping down on a vampire soon after he'd acquired his interesting abilities was enough to keep it from escaping. It was wriggling around a lot though.  
  
He stopped briefly in a handy cluster of bushes and concentrated on his hand. He'd only done this once or twice before, so it didn't really come naturally but...  
  
Muscles flowed. There was a faint "snick" sound, and a two-inch poison tipped dart erupted from his left index finger and embedded itself into the flesh of the Colololo demon. It's eyes widened briefly and it struggled a little longer, but the battle was already lost. Unconsciousness came quickly.   
  
He grinned to himself. That ought to keep the stupid thing quiet. And now he'd better get out of here with his catch and...  
  
"Going somewhere?"  
  
Dammit.  
  
Carefully holding onto his prey, he shuffled around. Buffy Summers was standing four feet away from him, peering through the branches of his hiding place. Slightly behind her stood a compact looking guy with bleached white hair and an extremely floppy demon who was looking completely appalled.  
  
"Ned! What did you do to Ned?!"  
  
"Good question." She looked at him steadily. "So, how about you give me an answer? What _did_ you do to Ned?"  
  
Okay, don't panic. He had a hostage, after all. Talk to her...   
  
His voice came out as a hiss. It had pretty much been like that ever since he'd swallowed the fire-breathing Draget two weeks ago and acquired glands that weren't designed to be in the same throat as vocal chords. "Ssssimple poisson. He'sss not dead. Jussst out. I want to eat him later, you sssee."  
  
"I see. And you actually think I'm going to let you do that?"  
  
He shrugged, blinked his lizard eyes (Tellicon demon, four weeks ago) and ruffled the small electrical dampening fins on his neck (Socat sprite, 2 months ago). He could still pass for human if he had sunglasses and people didn't look too hard and he had everything tucked away, but that wasn't the effect he wanted right now. "Well, he isss a demon. Didn't think you liked 'em."  
  
"Yeah well," she said. "The thing is, I don't happen to have anything against demons if they play nice and stick to society's rules. Like old Ned there has been doing. It's only when they decide to go around killing things and making a mess that I get a bit ticked off. Like you're doing, for example. "  
  
"Sssso you're sssaying?"  
  
Buffy narrowed her eyes. "Let go of the demon or I kick your butt."   
  
Damn, damn, damn again. "I'm hungry."  
  
"Not my problem."  
  
Right, okay. Lay out the options. On the bright side, she didn't seem to have recognised him yet, what with all the... changes. Maybe if he just let 'old Ned' go she'd let him escape. On the other hand... he was hungry, and tired, and there was a huge, twisted, animal _thing_ that was writhing inside him that said, _protect your prey_. Don't let her get away with this. Don't let her treat you like this. She doesn't _know_ you now. You can _win_.  
  
Because that was the thing, you see. He hadn't just taken bits of their powers when he'd eaten the demons. He'd taken part of their _essence_ as well. And their essence wanted to rip this little girl apart.  
  
He growled.  
  
*************  
  
Buffy stood perfectly still, eyes fixed on Ned's abductor. He... it... whatever, was a weird looking thing, even as demons went. Mostly human looking at first glance, but then there were not quite vampiric lumps on its face, weird fluttering fins extruding from its neck and eyes with pupils that were inhuman slits. Giles was going to have fun looking this one up.  
  
It growled. Okay, never a good sign. She tensed and felt Spike doing the same behind her. Should have known better to try and do things peacefully. Never worked when you were a slayer. However, if they were going to fight...  
  
"Clem?"  
  
"Uh... yeah, Buffy?"  
  
"Get out of here. Now. Check on the girls."  
  
"Right you are."  
  
She listened as Clem scuttled away, and her adversary, sensing a distraction, pounced.  
  
*************  
  
Some way away from the cemetery where a violent conflict was happening between the slayer, her vampire companion and a strange and mysterious entity, there was an alley. As alleys went, it was far from exciting, even considering that it _was_ in Sunnydale and therefore _did_ get traversed by demons every now and again. It wasn't near anywhere exciting, it didn't contain anything terribly fantastic, and no one tended to want to hang around it. In fact, the most exciting thing ever to happen to the alley was happening right now, and only actually lasted a few seconds.  
  
A bright, jagged rift appeared in the air, three figures fell through it, and the rift quickly shut again. There was a few seconds of silence, and then one of the figures, the one with a strange blackish brown colour and silvery veins that covered every part of its skin, stood up. This particular figure walked on four legs, had a low to medium intelligence, was capable of travelling through time and space, and was, as any good demonologist could tell you, a very rare Hourwhether demon. Currently, it was also pretty pissed off.   
  
It had been hijacked! Someone had called irresistibly, and when the Hourwhether had come near, it had found itself captured by some kind of magic and forced to take its captors to wherever _this_ was. That... That was just intolerable. The Bastards! And now recharging would take a couple of days, and the Hourwhether was stuck somewhere that it didn't even want to be anyway! If it ever found out who did this, they were _dead_.   
  
The 'medium' part of its intelligence chose this moment to helpfully butt in, and the demon turned around. There! There they were!   
  
The two other figures were smooth, pink, and entirely human looking. They also appeared to be very, very unconscious. The Hourwhether started towards them, and then the medium part of its intelligence gave another poke. "Wait a second", it said. "These two have captured you and forced you to do their bidding. This would indicate that they are very powerful. Are you _sure_ you want to go up against them?"  
  
The Hourwhether frowned. "But," it argued, "They look all crumpled. Surely they can't do any harm to me now."  
  
"Possibly." said the medium, and slightly more cowardly, part of its intelligence, "But maybe they're faking. Do you really want to risk it?"  
  
The Hourwhether paused, shuffled its feet, and then sighed and wandered away to rest and recharge. It hadn't actually been harmed; why take the risk?  
  
In actual fact, the demon could have quite cheerfully done whatever it wanted to the two figures. 'Riding along' with an Hourwhether is a dangerous and very traumatic experience for anyone who is not actually an Hourwhether, and they were going to be unconscious for a good few hours yet. All in all, it was a good thing for them that the demon was intelligent enough to be cautious, but not intelligent enough to actually read up on methods of transdimensional travel.  
  
The alley was once again silent and relatively uninteresting. If, of course, you discounted the two time travellers lying at the back.  
  
*************  
  
  



	3. Part Three

**Part Three**  
  
_"You think I've changed, but I'm the same"_  
How I Got This Way, Taxiride   
  
"Do we have any mushrooms?" asked Andrew.  
  
Dawn looked up from where she was completing her homework on the kitchen table. "What do you want mushrooms..." She stopped and stared. It appeared that while she'd been buried in homework Andrew had decided to empty half of the kitchen out. Pot and pans littered the bench; bags of vegetables filled the other end of the table. Good grief, how had she not noticed this? How into her homework had she _been_? "Andrew, what are you doing?"  
  
He looked pleased to have her attention. "I'm going to cook a stew. I figure if I do it now and then cool it down, I can snap-freeze it into convenient one meal packages for reheating at a later date."  
  
She blinked at him. "What? Why?"  
  
"Well, for people to eat, obviously. I've kind of noticed that no one here has actually been eating that well since everyone came. There's been a lot of takeout and because there's so many people here they've been kinda crowding everywhere and everyone's so busy and... so I thought that I'd kinda designate myself as the cook."  
  
This time she looked amused. "You're going to be our cook?"  
  
"Yes! I mean I'm really not doing anything else..."  
  
"That's because you're a hostage."  
  
"Well, yeah, about that term. I mean, I don't know whether it's exactly what you should be using. Isn't a hostage someone that you're keeping so you can get something in return or stop someone from doing something to you? Like in Die Hard where..."  
  
And again with the films. Dawn shook her head. Constant exposure to Andrew had softened her initial aversion even despite the fact that she knew about the blood on his hands. But god, he _so_ needed to step into reality. "Andrew. You're a hostage. That's what we choose to call you, that's what you are. Deal with it."  
  
He looked miffed. "Well, can't I be the cook too? I mean, you may not think it's important, but what if everyone gets malnourished or something? They'll be all weak and unable to fight."  
  
Her memory twinged. "An army marches on its stomach", she said.   
  
He looked a little confused. "I don't think that can be right. I mean, if they're on their stomachs then they can only kinda wiggle... Oh wait, you mean like what Napoleon said."  
  
"Yes! I mean like what Napoleon said. Geez, don't be so literal."  
  
"Last night Spike told me I had to be _more_ literal."  
  
"Be more _sensible._ That'll cover it all."  
  
Andrew paused and bit his lip, thinking about this. After a moment of contemplation, he asked, "So, are there any mushrooms?"  
  
Dawn sighed, opened her mouth to answer, and then shut it again when the front door opened and people started crowding into the house. Instead she said, "Sounds like everyone's back."   
  
"Guess so. Oooh, I wonder if they went to the grocery store on the way home?"   
  
She jumped up to go and greet them. "You can ask, but I don't think they're gonna have mushrooms. Hey, just put in some of the tofu that Willow's got at the back there. It's got the texture."  
  
"It's not the same!"  
  
"Whatever." She left him to it, walking into the lounge and into the middle of a conversation.  
  
"...and there were these little fin things on the side, kinda like a Socat's only, y'know, it obviously wasn't." Clem was making circling motions in the air as he talked, presumably to indicate what the 'fin things' looked like.  
  
Molly was closing the door behind her, the last of the group to enter. She was still listening though, because she asked, "How do you know it wasn't?"  
  
Clem turned to her. "Well, it was more human sized, " he said. "Whereas Socats are really small. Like a few inches small. This thing looked almost human."  
  
Rona frowned. "No way was that thing human. It had claws and fins..."  
  
"And it was breathing fire!" Vi added.  
  
Clem looked vaguely miffed. "Well, yeah. I meant in a general way. It's weird though, that I can't figure out what it is. I mean, usually I'm really good at that kind of thing... Oh, hi Dawn!"  
  
Dawn grinned at him. She liked Clem. Sure, he was a bizarre looking floppy skinned demon, but, as someone who'd once been a large glowing blob of light, she'd learned not to judge by appearances. "Hi Clem! You guys are back early... Oh wait, where's Buffy and Spike?"  
  
"Yeah, well, there was a bit of a fight, actually."  
  
Rona snorted "A bit nothing! We were in the middle of the lesson when this weird-ass demon thing decided to wail on all the non-evil-demons that we were listening to!"  
  
Dawn frowned at her. "Hang on, you're saying you had some creature jump out and start trying to eat the _demons_ instead of the girls?"  
  
Clem nodded earnestly. "Yeah, it was pretty weird. We were sitting around listening to Gaserack's speech..."  
  
"Snoring along to it, you mean," cut in Rona.  
  
"Well yeah, he was a bit... Anyway. We were sitting there listening to it and I was kinda whispering to Buffy and Spike and then she goes all bloodhound and says there's something watching us. And then I go 'where's Ned?', and we all go 'uh oh' and she sorta indicates for all the girls to stay there while we go to look for him."  
  
"Leaving us with good old Gaserack." Molly made a face.  
  
"And so we go off, and there's this weird creature dragging off poor Ned! Buffy does the whole 'stop what you're doing or I'll hit you', but then he goes all snarly and starts trying to rip into her. I mean, I went off to stay with the girls and all, but they weren't far away, and then they kind of got out from the cover of the trees and we could all watch from a distance."  
  
"It was cool!" Amanda piped up enthusiastically. "Spike and Buffy were completely tearing into this guy, and then he started to go nuts and do things like breathing fire..."  
  
"...and spitting out these darts from his fingertips!"  
  
"And he had fangs!"  
  
"And his skin grew all hard and lumpy..."  
  
Clem nodded along. "Yeah, and he had these little fins on his neck. Kinda like a Socat sprite." He paused and gathered his thoughts. "But anyway... they fought him for a few minutes while we all watched and I went and made sure Ned was okay, and then the demon thing, he just pauses and looks at them like 'what am I doing this for?'"  
  
"And then he turns around and runs away," finished Rona.  
  
Dawn flopped down on the couch. "Well, at least he isn't completely stupid."  
  
Clem sat down next to her. "Not stupid, no, but he was really fast. Buffy and Spike ran after him but they just lost him completely."  
  
She arched an eyebrow. "That thing's still out there?"  
  
"That's where Buffy and Spike are," explained Amanda. "They helped us to take Ned back to his place and made sure someone was with him and then they sent us back here while they went to see if they could find it. I mean, him. The demony thing. Though you probably already guessed that, so I'll shut up now..."  
  
Dawn gave her a reassuring smile. "It's okay."  
  
"Oh... thanks." A tiny smile in return.  
  
"Anyway," said Clem. "I just hope that they find whoever it is. All the guys were completely freaked out. I mean geez, it's not often we get targeted by this kind of thing. Makes you scared to go out at night."  
  
Dawn patted him on the back and tried to look positive. "Hey, I wouldn't worry. Buffy and Spike are complete experts at this. They'll find him."  
  
**************  
  
"We're not going to find him." Buffy kicked the kerb in frustration.  
  
Behind her, Spike nodded in resignation. "Looks like that, pet. We've been looking near two hours now, and not a peep."  
  
"Maybe we should go back to Willy's."  
  
"I don't think it'll do much good. You ask me, they didn't have a clue what you were talking about. I'm betting this one's a new player in town."  
  
"Great, another one. This is not what I need right now."  
  
"Well, y'know. It's a job."  
  
"And lucky old me gets to do it." She sighed. "Let's just get back. This is hopeless."  
  
He turned obligingly towards the Summer's residence. "Bit of a glass half empty kind of mood there?"  
  
Buffy glared at him. "I'm tired. I'm irritated, and I'm just had my sparkling lesson plan shot to hell. Also..." she hesitated.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
She chewed on her lip. "I keep having this nasty feeling that I should have recognised that thing."  
  
He considered. "By species, or do you think you've actually met him?"  
  
"I don't know. Met, I think. There was something so familiar... but I just can't think of it. It's like... familiarity but something new added to it. Do you know what I mean?"  
  
"Seriously? You're being a bit hazy there."  
  
The kerb got another kick. "I can't _be_ any clearer. It's like I've got it on the tip of my tongue. It's driving me crazy."  
  
"Can tell."  
  
"Thanks for the multitudes of help."  
  
"Glad to be of service. Why are you so worried, anyway? Seems like this thing is more into targeting demons."  
  
"And I shouldn't care about that?"  
  
"I'm just saying..."  
  
"I do care about that. This thing is in my territory and it nearly killed someone under my protection. That is definitely classified as a bad thing."  
  
"Ahhh, I see. Not good for the reputation if it gets out."  
  
She stopped and gave him a nasty look. "That is _not_ the only reason..."  
  
Spike held up his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. I'm sorry."  
  
She held his gaze for a few seconds before nodding. "Right. But you're right about that too, I'm not going to deny it. It isn't good for my reputation, and I _need_ my reputation to hold this place together."  
  
He nodded in understanding. "Folks start getting rowdy when they think you can't deal with them."  
  
"And considering what we're all going to be facing in the coming months, I _so_ don't need anyone else getting rowdy."  
  
"Point taken." He tilted his head to the side, noticing that she was looking frustrated again. "Might try sleeping on it. Maybe it'll come to you."  
  
"Either that or it'll drive me completely insane." She sighed again. "Okay, you're right. I'm not going to think about it."  
  
"Good."  
  
"Definitely keeping it out of my mind."  
  
"Right then."  
  
"...Maybe it was at Willy's. Do you think I might have seen him at Willy's before?"   
  
**************  
  
He huddled in his coat and sunglasses in an alleyway just off from the Bronze and looked cautiously around. He was pretty sure he'd lost them, but it couldn't hurt to be careful. He did doubt they'd be looking here, though. After all, they were chasing a weird demon looking thing. People would be screaming if he hung around the Bronze, right? He smiled to himself, feeling smug. The fact that he could make himself look almost like the human he used to be was still an asset he wanted to keep. Very, very useful. Have to be careful not to eat anything that would mess with that.   
  
He pulled the coat tighter and sat on an upturned trash bin. Still tired, still hungry, and he'd really been pretty stupid back there. Getting into a fight with Buffy Summers? Was he just asking to get his butt kicked? He wasn't in this time period to deal with Buffy Summers, he was here to kill his stupid little brother. Of course, he had no idea where his stupid little brother might be at this time, but if he didn't continue to act extremely stupid like he had tonight, he should have plenty of time to find out. Honestly...  
  
"Tucker?"  
  
He jumped up and swung around. What the hell?  
  
The man walking up the ally way looked to be in his early twenties and wore clothes that suggested he'd just stepped out of the Bronze. The guy was staring at him in surprise and...delight?  
  
"Tucker Wells?"  
  
He stared at the guy. Huh?  
  
"Tucker? It's me, Steve! You know, we were in Calculus together at Sunnydale High! Geez, I haven't seen you in like, forever!"  
  
He blinked at the intruder. Steve? Did he know a Steve? Actually, come to think of it...  
  
"Sssteve Campbell? The one who dated Janet Pearssson?"  
  
Steve beamed. "Yeah, it's me! Geez, how have you been? I heard you got into some kind of trouble at the end of the year, and them you just disappeared. Not that that's anything strange in Sunnydale..."  
  
He smiled weakly, still slightly taken aback. "I guesss not. Uhhh, ssso. How are you?"  
  
"I've been great! Still hanging around and all. And how are you? I mean, you look really...." Steve hesitated and took a closer look. "Actually you look kinda... older. And a little wacky... you okay there?"  
  
He frowned. This was probably a bad conversation to be having. He settled for being abrupt. "I'm fine."  
  
"You're speaking a little weirdly, too. Hey, have you been sick?"  
  
Well, technically... "I've been... abnormal."  
  
Steve looked mostly unfazed. "Geez, that's too bad. So, you here alone?"  
  
Good grief. He idly thought about cutting Steve to shreds, just for the fun of it. He was really starting to get irritating "Yesss...."  
  
"Well, that's good!" Steve smiled brightly, and suddenly Tucker had a strange feeling that he may have misinterpreted the situation.  
  
He played on the feeling. "I think I'll be going sssomewhere now."  
  
And Steve continued to smile as telltale ridges sprung up on his face, and he bared his fangs. "Oh, I don't think you'll be going anywhere."  
  
To Steve's surprise, Tucker smiled back.  
  
Momentarily taken aback, he frowned and tried again. "I said, I don't think you'll be going anywhere."  
  
"Fair enough."  
  
Steve deflated slightly. "Fair enough?"  
  
"Fair Enough."  
  
The vampire looked at him, puzzled. "Look, you do know I'm going to kill you and drink your blood, right?"  
  
"Oh, I don't think ssso."  
  
"I really do think so! Geez, I'm a vampire here, y'know?!"  
  
"I know." Tucker took off his sunglasses, blinked his lizard eyes and smiled again. "And I'm hungry."  
  
**************   
  
When the door opened, Clem jumped up from where he and Dawn had spent the last few hours eating chips and watching bad monster movies while the potentials trained in the basement. "Buffy, Spike, you're back! Any luck?"   
  
Buffy winced and looked apologetic. "Sorry Clem, I think he got away."  
  
"Aww, no."  
  
"Hey, it's okay." Dawn patted him on the shoulder. "If you're really worried you can stay here for the night. I mean we've already got ten thousand potentials, a witch, a slayer, a vampire, and a hostage crowded into here, what's one demon more?"  
  
Buffy gave her a look and then realised Dawn probably had a point. "I suppose if you really want to..."  
  
Clem brightened slightly. "Well, I wouldn't mind staying just for tonight. I guess it's kinda paranoid but..."  
  
"Not paranoid if they really are out to kill you," remarked Spike dryly.  
  
Buffy smiled at Clem warmly. "It's okay. Make yourself at home. We'll take another look around tomorrow, in any case."  
  
Dawn perked up. "Do you want me to do some research? I could see if we can find out what it is."  
  
"Buffy thinks she already knows."  
  
She deflated a little. "Oh. So, no need then."  
  
Buffy shot Spike an annoyed look. "No! I mean, yes, there is. I kinda think there's something familiar, but I don't what it is. Research is still needed."  
  
Dawn looked happy. "Will do."  
  
"Just make sure your homework's done as well..." She frowned. "Is someone cooking?"  
  
"Andrew's decided to designate himself cook." Dawn giggled. "He thinks that the First might be able to win over us by malnutrition."  
  
Buffy rolled her eyes. "For heaven's sake."  
  
"Ahh, leave the boy alone. He's just trying to be useful."  
  
"He's just trying to act as if he's one of our trusted allies instead of the guy we're keeping hostage! God, he's never going to grow up, is he?"  
  
Spike smirked. "I'd be surprised."  
  
***************  
  
Rebecca Hallows sat at the counter and flicked through another magazine. She was bored silly. It'd been a desperately slow night at the tiny all night convenience store she worked at, and things didn't look like they were going to get any busier.  
  
When she'd first taken the job she'd been pretty scared about working nights in Sunnydale at a one person store. In fact she'd almost decided to quit two seconds after she'd gotten the job. She needed money, but not _that_ badly. However, the little old lady who owned the store had not only been incredibly persuasive, she'd also demonstrated the powerful magical Sigel that was carved above the door preventing anyone who intended violence from entering. Rebecca hadn't believed it at first, but now that she'd seen the thing keep out bikers, demons, sleazebags and an awful lot of drunks, she actually felt safer at the store than at home.  
  
It was because of this, then, that she wasn't really worried about the guy who stumbled in looking like he was completely off his head. She did groan inwardly, however. Junkies sucked.   
  
She pulled together a bright fake grin. "Can I help you?"  
  
He looked up and stared at her vaguely. "wha..."  
  
Teeth gritted, she tried again. "I said, can I help you?"  
  
"oh..." He swayed and grabbed hold of a nearby stand. "I... can I have a chair?"  
  
She glared at him, annoyed. "You know, considering that you did this to yourself I really don't see why I should help you."  
  
He looked confused at this. "did this... Oh, wait... You think... I'm not... I've got this migraine, it's really... really..." He winced and grabbed his head.  
  
Rebecca hesitated at this. She'd had an aunt who'd suffered from migraines and they _had_ spaced her out completely at times. And come to think of it, the guy did actually look more in-pain out of it than in-pleasure out of it. She grabbed a stool and came out from behind the counter.  
  
He sunk into it gratefully, head in hands. "thangyou..." she heard him mumble.  
  
Rebecca knelt down next to him, now worried. "No problem. Look, if it's really this bad do you think you should go to the hospital? I can call a..."  
  
"No!" He looked up at this, and managed a watery smile. "ids... it's okay, really. I just need... I didn't have any painkillers and I thought I'd go and get some and then it sort of came over me and... can I have some painkillers please? And...and also a paper..." He fumbled at the backpack he wore and, with a mammoth amount of effort, managed to produce a wallet .  
  
She jumped up and grabbed a glass of water and the strongest painkillers she could find. Poor guy. Now that she could get a good look at him, he really looked very pale and drawn. She hoped he wasn't going to collapse in the store.  
  
He accepted the pills and water gratefully, downed then, and sat for a few minutes with his eyes closed taking deep breaths.   
  
After a bit she asked gently "How do you feel now?"  
  
To her surprise he opened his eyes and looked almost amused. "I feel", he said, still slightly wavery, "like I've just hitched a ride with a rare demon through a portal ten years into the past to chase down a madman."  
  
She blinked. "Hell of a migraine."  
  
He gave a faint bark of laughter. "It really is."  
  
She stuck out a hand. "Rebecca. Nice to meet you."  
  
He blinked in confusion for a few seconds and then smiled. "Andrew" he said. "Andrew Wells. Nice to meet you too."  
  
************  
  
  



	4. Part Four

Okay, _finally_ I've finished the fourth chapter of Change.   
  
Any comments, big or small, are greatly appreciated and will help me get the next chapter out that much sooner. Enthusiasm does that. Also panic, but that's only with assignments :-).  
  
Enjoy!  
--   
Blinky the Tree Frog  
  
  
**  
Part Four**  
  
_"When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse,__  
__Out of the corner of my eye.__  
__I turned to look but it was gone.__  
__I cannot put my finger on it now.__  
__The child is grown, the dream is gone."_  
  
- Pink Floyd, Comfortably Numb  
  
Andrew was up very early that morning. It wasn't that he didn't want the sleep, of course, but he was the cook and he needed to have the stew portions done and frozen before people started coming in for breakfast. He was being _useful_. He was being part of the team. This was the first step on the road to his redemption!   
  
He hummed a little as he worked. He'd found the kitchen scales and had decided to measure the stew out into the individual portions. After all, it wouldn't do to have uneven servings; that way people might get too much or too little. Of course, the last serving would be smaller than the rest, but he could save that for his own lunch so everything turned out…  
  
The phone rang. He jumped.  
  
What on earth? It was six o'clock in the morning! Who'd be calling now? People would get woken up, and everyone really needed their sleep around here. Fighting evil was really tiring work! He lunged for the handset and scooped it up as quickly as he could. Hopefully everyone was still getting their rest.  
  
"Hello, Summers residence." He thought it was only fair that he say something like that, because he didn't usually live here and people might get confused otherwise. Also, he'd made answering the phone kind of his other official job, so of course he had to do it properly.  
  
There was silence on the other end of the phone, and he frowned. "Hello? Hello?"  
  
This was irritating. Had someone called a wrong number at six am? Some people were so inconsiderate! "Okay, I'm going to hang up if I don't hear something in the next ten seconds, okay?" That was fair. No one could say he hadn't given a warning then, could they?  
  
Ten seconds later he sighed and put back the handset. Honestly, some people. Not only was it really early, what if someone important needed to call while the phone was tied up? Society really had to work on cultivating better phone manners.  
  
***************  
  
Tucker yawned, stretched, and pulled himself to his feet. The old factory that he'd spent the night in was far from the best place he'd ever slept in, but at least he'd gotten to eat before settling down for the night. Ahh, vampires. They were always so damn sure of their own superiority. He cricked his neck distractedly and looked at the sky. Still early, by the look of it.   
  
He'd eaten vampires before so he hadn't actually been able steal any new abilities from good old Steve, but he did feel a lot more refreshed. Probably more sleep would be a good idea but really he just wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.  
  
Of course considering that he'd just time travelled back ten years and no one here knew what had happened to him or what he was planning to do, it didn't actually matter how long it took for him to find and eviscerate Andrew. Hell, in this time period, most people probably wouldn't even care what happened to his weedy little brother. It was just…  
  
There was this irritating anxious feeling that lingered at the back of his neck, and he suspected that it wasn't going to go away until he'd separated the twerp's head from his body. Besides, it was only sensible not to count your chickens before they hatched, right? Tucker liked to think that he was sensible. Okay, previously he'd been a bit of an idiot; but now, now that he had wonderful demonic powers and an actual plan, now he was definitely a sensible guy.   
  
So sensibly, he was going to kill his little brother as quickly as possible and _then_, when Tucker was damn sure that there wasn't anyone to stop him, _then_ he'd go enjoy himself.   
  
Besides, it ought to be a laugh.  
  
*****************  
  
Buffy took the stairs two at a time while running a brush through her hair. Damn it! Late! She swerved into the kitchen, which was currently filled pretty much to the bursting point. God, and there were more potentials arriving everyday. This was really going to get nightmarish eventually.  
  
"Hey Buffy!" Willow looked up from where she appeared to be surfing the net on her laptop with one hand and eating cereal with the other.  
  
"Hey. Can't talk. Late."  
  
"I did kinda notice that, but you looked so tired."  
  
"I don't think that's really a legit excuse unfortunately, Will. Hey did someone eat the breakfast bars? I need something quick."  
  
"I ate one!" Vi piped up helpfully from where she'd been scanning the cupboards.  
  
Rona nodded. "Me too. I emptied them out on the table and everyone dove in. I thought there were a couple left though. Hey Clem, did you see the breakfast bars? They were right near you."  
  
Clem looked up from scanning the Sunnydale Times. "Near me? Well I don't… Oh, wait!" He stood up and gave himself a quick shake. Two slightly crumpled breakfast bars fell obligingly onto the table. "There you go! I must have leant on them. They still look alright though, you want one?"  
  
Buffy tried not to look appalled. She didn't want to insult him or anything, after all. It was just…  
  
"I'm… thinking I'm not really feeling like breakfast bars right now anyway," she said in a voice that she hoped sounded tactful. Having demons in the house brought a whole new set of etiquette rules that no one had ever taught her how to deal with.  
  
"Don't forget your lunch! I packed up my stew in quick nutritious servings using Tupperware's fully microwavable containers! You can let it sit during the day and then put it in the microwave for about two minutes, maybe about three if you want to be really safe, then…"  
  
"Andrew, please!" God, having Andrew in the house brought a whole _other_ set of etiquette rules that no one had taught her how to deal with. "I'm okay. I can get something at the cafeteria."  
  
He looked crestfallen. "But this is nutritious! You need to keep your energy up as our leader and commander!"  
  
"Commander?! Andrew, for heaven's sake…"  
  
Dawn interrupted her. "It really is good stew, Buffy."  
  
"And it's nutritious!" He looked hopeful.  
  
She sighed and caved. "Okay, fine, nutritious, great."  
  
Andrew looked a lot more pleased than the situation called for, but then, he usually did. "You won't regret this decision! And if you'd like to use my services in future I can make some other exciting dinners…"  
  
"Andrew…"  
  
"I saw this great recipe for Mongolian lamb…"  
  
"Andrew!"  
  
"I'm just saying…" A harsh ringing cut through the kitchen. "Ooh! Phone! I'll get it!"  
  
The Slayer looked vastly relieved. Dawn grinned at her and mouthed, "Saved by the bell."  
  
Buffy was gone by the time Andrew had hung up the phone, which meant she didn't hear him complaining that this was the third prank phone call he'd gotten that day. Not that it really mattered; she probably wouldn't have thought anything of it anyway. There were more important things to worry about.  
  
***************  
  
Tucker stood in the house where he'd spent most of his early years and scowled.   
  
He'd expected that finding Andrew would be a fairly easy job. Sure, he hadn't actually been paying attention to Andrew's movements up until the point when they met up again nine and a half years in the future, and he'd pretty much lost contact with his family right after graduation when he moved several states away and then got jailed for robbery, and he'd never been really close to them anyway and…  
  
Okay, so he probably shouldn't have expected things to be that easy. But honestly, Andrew was the king of geeks at this point. Tucker had figured that he'd be living with their idiot parents till at least twenty-five.   
  
He was apparently wrong. There was definite evidence that the Wells family still resided in this particular house, but there was no sign of Andrew and what used to be his room had apparently been turned into a place for storing his mother's sewing experiments. Andrew wasn't here. Where the hell was he? How the hell was he supposed to find the idiot? This sucked.  
  
He frowned to himself. Okay, think logically. His mom would know where Andrew was. All he had to do was wait until she got home and threaten a bit of torture…  
  
He jumped as the phone rang and then grumbled and threw himself onto the couch. This day was so far turning out to be really annoying, and now he was going to have to deal with his mother as well. Of course, that might be amusing, especially if he had to get to the torture stage…  
  
"…sorry but the Wells family is currently out of the state and won't be back until the 29th. If you have an urgent message our cell phone number is…"  
  
He stared at the answering machine in minor disbelief. He did _not_ just hear that. That was just…  
  
"Arrgh!" He jumped up, and kicked the coffee table across the room. God! And who the hell left a message on their machine talking about how they weren't going to be at their house anyway? A retard! His mother was a stupid, moronic, idiotic _retard_, and she was damn _lucky_ that she wasn't here, because right about now he really wanted to smash her head in. And pull out her spine. And cut off her hands and put them in the blender. Dammit!   
  
He walked up to the answering machine, unplugged it, dropped it, and then stomped it into tiny little pieces. There, that felt a bit better. So his mother wasn't going to help. That was fine, that was okay. He wasn't fucking stupid for god's sake, was he? He'd find Andrew on his own. No problem.  
  
Where would Andrew be likely to be if he wasn't here? With friends? His little brother had actually managed to get a few of those, even despite the perpetual loser status. There was the guy who did the electronic stuff… Warren? Warren Mears? And the short guy. Jonathan. Class loser. And there were those little kids, the ones who were about three grades below him that he played Magic: The Gathering with in school lunch times. God, he didn't even remember their names. And there was… okay, there really wasn't anyone else that he could think of, which really just reinforced the whole loser status thing. He'd start there. Jonathan Levinson. Warren Mears. How hard could it be to find them?  
  
**************   
  
"So, whatcha doing?"  
  
Willow looked up from her laptop and frowned at Andrew. "I'm accessing a database of demons."  
  
He bounced on his toes in the doorway. "Oh cool. So you're like, trying to find out about that…"  
  
She gritted her teeth. "Yes Andrew, I'm trying to find out about that. I also really need to concentrate, so if you want to be quiet…"  
  
"Okay, sure." He walked into the room, sat down, and stared innocently at her. Constantly. Unblinkingly.  
  
She managed about two minutes before she cracked. "Andrew! Will you please stop it!?"  
  
He jumped up at her outburst, suddenly looking terrified. "Okay! I'm sorry! Don't skin me! I'm going!"  
  
Faintly disturbed, she snapped, "Andrew!"  
  
He stopped at the doorway and looked back at her nervously. She took a deep breath. "Andrew, I'm not going to… hurt you in any way. I mean, I'm really, _really_ not. I'm just… This is just important and I'd just rather not have you sitting there and… distracting me… okay?"  
  
He looked a little more at ease. "Okay."  
  
"Why don't you go talk to Clem?"  
  
"He's talking with the potentials who didn't have to go to school about sports teams. It's kinda boring."  
  
"Okay, fine. Maybe you could do some more cooking or something?"  
  
"Well I would, but we're running out of ingredients. I need Xander to go to the store…"  
  
"Right. So maybe you could…" There was a jangling ring, and she latched onto it. "Answer the phone! There you go!"  
  
He heaved a sigh. "Well, okay, but it's probably going to be another prank call. I hope this isn't connected to the First Evil or anything."  
  
She smiled slightly. "I doubt it. Probably just some punk kid having fun."  
  
******************  
  
Andrew Wells, ten years plus, put the phone receiver down and pulled himself out of the phone box. He winced and rubbed his temples as he made his way back to the abandoned building that was currently being used as their refuge. Walking back and forth from there and the public phone really wasn't doing his head much good (still recovering from his recent bout of time travel as it was), but at least the constant checking reassured him that his younger self was at the Summers' house and in a relatively safe environment. Now he just had to hope that he _stayed _in the house until Tucker had been found and dealt with.   
  
Due to her extremely ill thought out answering machine message, he even had the comfort of knowing that his mother was out of town. The house would probably be ransacked by the time she got back, obviously, but at least she wasn't going to get ripped apart by her nutso son-from-the-future. He winced again. Now all he needed was for this nagging headache to go away, and for Dust to wake up, and then the two of them could actually get to work.   
  
He hoped it wasn't going to take too long. Tucker had enough of a lead on them as it was.  
  
*************  
  
  
  
  



	5. Flashback One

_Flashback One: Six months ago and ten years in the future…_  
  
The object was small and wooden and shaped like a flattened torpedo. Dust carefully unwound the long string and started to whirl it around; slowly at first, then faster and faster. He grinned as it spun through the air, producing a strange low whooping sound, and grinned wider when there was an answering whoop from off in the distance.   
  
"They answered! And they were right, it does carry a long way!" He turned to his companion. "Hey, maybe…"  
  
"Careful!" Andrew jumped backwards, narrowly avoiding being clunked in the head by the whirling artefact.  
  
"Crap!" Dust stepped back and stopped whirling, letting the object slow and then fall slack. "Umm, sorry about that. It is neat though, isn't it?"  
  
Andrew smiled at him and hitched his rucksack back onto his shoulder. "Pretty cool, yeah. It was nice of them to give us a gift."  
  
"Well, we did kinda help out with the whole demon thing. We should lend a hand to more Aborigines in the outback. They give cool whirly gifts."  
  
"You're going to be completely fascinated by that for at least the next day, aren't you?"  
  
"It's whirly!" Dust grinned, feeling cheerful and slightly silly. They'd survived another bizarre encounter, they'd helped out where they were needed, and they were off travelling once again. All was right in the world.   
  
He examined the wooden object as he wound the string back up. "Hey, do you know what the burnt inscription says? I thought it was just a picture, but it looks like words as well."  
  
He passed it to Andrew, who squinted at it. "Umm… It looks like… thankyou… No, umm, thankfulness to the… summoner of the demons and… the brave… small one who… accompanies him." He looked up and grinned. "Brave small one?"  
  
"Brave small one!? I don't believe that!" He looked indignant. "I'm not _that_ short. It's just that I'm thin as well and the brown hair makes me look kind of mousy. I mean honestly, you got 'summoner of demons' and I got 'brave small one'? That's just really… Andrew?"  
  
Andrew had stopped suddenly, his hands to his head. He looked… shocked.  
  
"Andrew? Hello? What's wrong?"  
  
"Uh…"  
  
"Andrew!"  
  
He jumped slightly and stared at Dust incomprehensibly. "I… Dust?"  
  
"Yes it's me! Dust! Your mostly loyal companion? Guy who's been hanging around for the last 3 years? What happened there? You just completely zoned out!"  
  
"I… don't know. I…" He looked disturbed. "I think Tucker just ate someone."  
  
Dust raised his eyebrows. "Oookay. Look Andrew, you've been under a lot of pressure. Maybe this 'Tucker', whoever he is…"  
  
"Tucker's my brother! Remember how I told you about the hellhound thing?"  
  
"Oh. Right. That doesn't explain the whole eating comment, though."  
  
"I know." He looked worried. "Look, I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine this, Dust. I mean, I haven't even seen Tucker for almost ten years but I swear I just had this… flash. He was standing in a field… in Ohio, he's in Ohio. He was standing in a field and he felt… triumphant. And he'd just eaten someone."  
  
"Standing in a field in Ohio."  
  
"Yes! It was just… so real. It was completely disturbing."  
  
"I can't disagree."  
  
"We have to find him. I have to figure out what's going on."  
  
"Andrew, are you _sure _about this?"  
  
"Yes! He…"  
  
Now Dust looked worried. "Look, maybe you ought to wait and see whether you have any more of these… flashes before we decide to run halfway across the world. I'm just saying. You know, just for confirmation? Not that I don't _believe_ you…"  
  
"Right." Andrew sighed and massaged his temples. He looked suddenly tired. "You're right. I'm sorry. I just… That was so weird."  
  
"Tell me about it. Look, don't worry or anything, okay. It was probably… just a feeling. It was probably nothing. We should start looking for a campsite, it's getting dark."  
  
"Campsite. Sure." He was still frowning.  
  
Dust tried to look positive. "Andrew, it'll be fine. Even if something is wrong, it's just your brother. How much trouble can he be?"  
  
*************  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	6. Part Five

And here's the next riveting part. Feedback will be loved, relished and patted. I'd like to say a really huge thank you (huge  
because I probably should have thought of it before now!) to my beta readers, _Fab_ and _Erica Olson_. hugs Thanks!  
  
Blinky the Tree Frog  
  
  
  
**Part Five**  
  
_"Before too long__  
__I'll be repeating__  
__What's happened before in my mind__  
__Before too long__  
__Over and over__  
__Just like a hammer inside"_  
  
Before Too Long - Paul Kelly  
  
In the small community of Scathck (which is located in a small pocket dimension that is only accessible from an erratic portal located in Southern Borneo), Dust is a completely reasonable name. Not a very wonderful or heroic name, to be sure, but perfectly serviceable.   
  
In the three and a half years that Dust had been travelling with Andrew Wells, he'd started to get the feeling that the small community of Scathck may well be _only _place that Dust is a perfectly reasonable name. Most of the exotic people that he'd met as they wandered across miles of countryside and through dozens of dimensions had looked terribly bewildered when he'd introduced himself. Some were polite or oblivious enough not to mention anything, but he did get asked why he'd been named after dirt quite a lot. It was kind of disconcerting.  
  
As Dust slowly wound his way up to consciousness, it occurred to him to wonder why in the world he was even thinking about his name anyhow. It was ridiculous; if his mind was going to be stuck in complaint mode there were plenty of worse things it could have latched onto. Like the fact that he'd been knocked unconscious yet again, to pull something out of the air. Honestly, before he'd started travelling with Andrew he could have counted the number of times he'd been knocked unconscious on one hand. On two fingers, if he wanted to be really precise. Now…   
  
Now it happened all the time. Now he spent his days wandering from place to place and helping people deal with all manner of bizarre situations, just because it was a nice thing to do. Now he was living a lifestyle that would not by any general consensus be considered safe.  
  
He wouldn't swap it for the world.   
  
Travelling with Andrew was strange, panic inducing and at times ludicrously dangerous, but it was rarely boring.  
  
He winced. Yup, definitely becoming conscious. The world was starting to intrude on his musing, he heard sounds and felt stiff from lying on something hard. And the pain. The pain blossomed at the back of his head and arced it's way across his forehead and… oh god, it _hurt_. He was never going to try to travel through time again. Never, ever, ever, for as long as he ever lived. Well, other than getting back to his own time, obviously. If this had even worked anyhow. God, this might not even have worked. Tucker might still be out of their reach and Andrew could be already dead and the time continuum might be seconds from imploding from the paradoxes and…  
  
God, his head hurt. Dust groaned and opened his eyes.   
  
He blinked a few times to focus and realised there appeared to be a glass hovering over his face. Okay, that was a little strange. Probably he should say something about that.  
  
"Whadis?" he managed.   
  
A face appeared next to the glass, and Dust realised belatedly that Andrew, who was looking down at him with a faint expression of worry, was in fact holding it. Right. That made a lot more sense.  
  
Andrew proffered the glass. "Medicine", he said.  
  
Dust blinked at this. "Medicine?"  
  
Andrew nodded. "Think you can pull yourself up a bit so you can drink it?"  
  
He attempted this. The world tried to spin around a little, but he stubbornly ignored it. "Is that proper Earth medicine, or is it some weird magic stuff that you tried to brew up?"  
  
Andrew looked somewhere between offended and amused. "There's nothing wrong with my magic brewing abilities…"  
  
"That depends on whether you're making something for demons. Which I am not, you may have noticed." He managed to get into a sitting position and winced again as his head began to really pound. Andrew had been completely understating it when he'd said that the trip might shake them up just a little, but that wasn't unusual.  
  
Andrew sighed and passed over the glass "It's proper medicine. Strong painkillers. I got them at the local convenience store."  
  
"You managed to walk enough to get to the store?!"  
  
"Well, it was a little more swaying than walking, but yeah. Drink."  
  
He drank, and then sat with his head in his hands, breathing deeply and waiting for it to take effect.  
  
After a few minutes the pounding ebbed away to a tolerable ache and he carefully raised his head. "So, uh… Did we make it?"  
  
Instead of answering, Andrew looked triumphant and turned the newspaper he'd been reading around so that Dust could look at it. Dust frowned and summoned up all of his still-admittedly-dodgy English reading skills.   
  
"Sun-ny dale. Times. Oh. Cool. Times what?"  
  
"It's a newspaper thing. Kind of saying 'this is a record of the times of Sunnydale'. Or something like that. The point is we definitely made it. It's ten years in my past, we're in Sunnydale, and all's… well, not well. All's pretty bad actually…."  
  
"Well, from what you've said, that's about right, right?"  
  
"Pretty much."  
  
"Has Tucker eaten anything so we can get a bead on his location?"  
  
"If he has, I was too unconscious to sense it. But that's okay. We're in Sunnydale and at the moment my younger self is at least not horribly dead, so I'm fairly relieved."  
  
Dust looked startled at that. "You went and looked for yourself? I thought we agreed that we were going to try and interact as little as possible because we don't know anything about time travel!"  
  
"No, it's okay…"  
  
"What? It's not okay! We don't know whether changing anything will involve making some horrible future! What about that story you told me with the butterfly and time travelling toaster?"  
  
"Dust, calm down. I didn't go looking for him, I just thought back."  
  
"You…"  
  
Andrew took a deep breath. "Okay, here's the situation. Right now, out there, Buffy the slayer, all her allies and a bunch of girls that aren't yet slayers are preparing to fight the first evil. Remember all the stuff I told you about that?"  
  
Dust gave him a small smile. "You may have mentioned it once or twice."   
  
"Well, at the moment everyone's still at the house, and I'm there too."  
  
"And you know this because?"  
  
"I phoned me up. I had this thing about wanting to help out… I remember I almost always used to answer the phone so I've been calling every hour since this morning and hanging up when I answer. He's… I'm there. And as long as I'm there, I'm safe. Even if Tucker finds his way to the Summers house, he's not going to dare to take on the whole household, there're too many powerful people there. Oh, and incidentally that was actually two stories, Dust. And one of them was from the Simpsons, so…"  
  
"Andrew…"  
  
"…Sorry. Anyway, if Tucker finds his way to the house, and I doubt he will, at least for a while…"  
  
"Can't he track you by scent?"  
  
"He needs a starting point though. I haven't been wandering around Sunnydale; I've been locked up. It'll be hard to find something like that, and there's no way he'd _guess_ where I am."  
  
"Okay. So if he does find you?"  
  
"He'll probably wait for me to go out of the house and attack me then."  
  
"_Did _you ever go out the house once they had you there? You were kind of a hostage, right?"  
  
"Well yeah, but unfortunately I do kinda remember going out a few times. Not at first, but after they figured out that I wasn't trying to escape they let me go shopping with them now and then. And once or twice I was allowed to the library too."  
  
"Darn. You can't remember specifically when that started?"  
  
"It's been too long, Dust. I mean, I didn't actually think the information would be that important…"  
  
Dust frowned and swirled the dregs of his medicine. "Okay, so what are we going to do? Wait for Tucker to find you and ambush him in front of the house?"  
  
"Someone might see us. Specifically someone in the house might see us and if anything's going to mess up the time line, that will. They don't even know whether they're going to survive this thing!"  
  
"Well, it might be they're not going to. What about that theory you told me about all the multiple timelines that all head off from every point…"  
  
"Hypertime?"  
  
"Was that the comics one?"  
  
"Uh, yeah. That was it. The thing is, that might be true, but it might not be." Andrew bit his lip and twisted the paper in frustration. "That's the whole problem we've got here. We don't _know_. The only knowledge I've got about time travel is a whole lot of stuff from movies and comics and books. I don't know whether any of it's relevant, I don't know any of it's actually how time works. We're totally blind here…"  
  
"Then we'll just be really careful and try to interact as little as possible with anyone who might recognise us." Dust tried to look confident. Andrew was getting way too depressed. "We'll make sure that Tucker's not already at the house first. If he's not… We'll keep ringing up every hour to make sure you're there. If you're out we'll go and find you and protect you and if you stay there, well, that's good. It'll give us more time to see if we can find Tucker _before_ he gets to the house."  
  
"How? We can't sense him unless he eats something, and that could take hours."  
  
"Well… Look, you're sure he doesn't know where you are, right?"  
  
"There's no way he could. I never told him, no one from my family even knew what had happened to me, and right now present day Tucker is in jail in another state for some weird robbery thing involving demonic cats and a casino vault. Which I guess is good. It means we won't have to worry about the Blinovitch Limitation Effect with _him_."  
  
"The…" Dust looked puzzled until he noticed Andrew's sheepish look. "Okay, and that was from?"  
  
"Umm… Doctor Who. It's when two people from different time zones touch each other and there's this discharge of energy…"  
  
"That's the one with the phone box and the guy who kept changing his face?"  
  
"The one with… I can't believe this! I showed you like twenty episodes, surely you picked up a bit more than that!"  
  
Dust grinned. "No, no. The correct answer to that comment is: 'Gosh, Dust, I find your complete lack of any Earth pop culture knowledge charming and somewhat whimsical'".  
  
"Philistine."  
  
"Uh uh. _Whimsical_."  
  
Andrew looked resigned and shook his head. "Fine, don't appreciate the fine art of human television." His expression dissolved into thoughtfulness. "I think what we really need to do is try to act like Tucker."  
  
Dust looked faintly alarmed. "Go around murdering people and screaming about the great gobs of power we have?"  
  
"Err, no."  
  
"Thank goodness."  
  
"I was thinking more… If we were Tucker and we were trying to find me, where would we go?"  
  
"Oh, right. Okay, that makes sense. So where _would_ we go?"  
  
Andrew sighed and fumbled in his backpack for a pad. "Well, let's write a quick list."  
  
*************  
  
"Oh, you have _got_ to be _kidding_ me!"  
  
Tucker stared at what had once been the Mears residence in total disgust. 'Had once been' was the operative phrase at this point, because there was currently no sign of life and a large 'Sold' sign out the front.  
  
"Dammit!" He aimed a sold kick at the fence and there was a satisfying crack of wood. "This is just the most sssstupid, crappy, _fucking_ sssstupid thing... Where _hell_ are you? Moron!"   
  
He grabbed hold of the letter box and was just about to yank it out and throw it through a window when a helpful voice from the next yard asked, "You looking for the Mears's there, are ya?"  
  
He turned. A grizzled old man was looking up at him in enquiry; it appeared that he'd been weeding his front petunia patch. "Look a mite bit frustrated there, you do," he said mildly.  
  
"Really. You don't fucking ssssay."  
  
The old man frowned. "Hey now. No need for that language there."  
  
"Sssure. Right." He pulled himself together. The old man might be of use. "Yesss, I'm looking for the Mearsss. Can you tell me where they are?"  
  
"Moved out about two weeks ago. Don't know the exact address. Somewhere in Canada, I'm thinkin'."  
  
"_Canada_!?"  
  
"Round there, yeah. Poor woman, she just wanted to get far away from here, she did. After her son disappeared and all."  
  
"Yeah, well that'ssss…" Wait a second. "Her ssson disssappeared?"  
  
"Oh yeah. Vanished into thin air. Poor woman, terrible tragedy. It's a dangerous world nowadays."  
  
He scowled. "You'd think ssso, wouldn't you?"  
  
"Right it is." The old man nodded sagely and started back on his petunias, leaving Tucker fuming on the street.  
  
This was just unbelievable. He'd ransacked his parent's house and managed to find addresses for Warren and Jonathan in an old address book. But when he'd gone to the Levinson's he'd found that the place had been demolished and turned into an apartment complex containing people who had no idea where Jonathan could be found. So then he'd grabbed Warren's address, only to find out not only that Warren wasn't here, but that the idiot had managed to disappear altogether!  
  
He took a deep breath. Fine. That was just fine. He could deal with this. He could deal with _anything_ now. He wasn't going to get help from Jonathan or Warren. So next… What about the high school? They'd rebuilt the damn thing; he'd passed it earlier. Maybe the kids Andrew used to play card games with would still be there. Maybe _they'd_ know where he was. Failing that, maybe Andrew himself had visited the school recently. Tucker's sense of smell had been amplified exponentially by the various demonic essences within him; if he could actually find Andrew's scent trail, even if it was very old, he might be able to track him. It'd take a lot of concentration, but it was worth a try.   
  
He just hoped he'd get results. Otherwise he was going to have to kill something just for the sheer heck of it.  
  
***********  
  
"He's not here."  
  
Andrew grabbed the binoculars off of Dust and did another sweep of the Summers yard. "What if he's using the camouflage trick?"  
  
"Even if he is, Andrew, he's not so hard to spot if you actually know what you're looking for. We've swept the area front and back, we've got as close as we can dare without someone seeing us. He's not hiding here; he doesn't know where you are yet. Let's go and see if we can cut him off before he _does_ know."  
  
Andrew lowered the binoculars and nodded. "You're right." He pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket. "Okay, we've got my parents place, the Mears residence, Jon…" He bit his lip. "…we'vegotJonathan'soldplace, we've got the local comic shop, DVD Sunnydale and the high school. What do you think first?"  
  
Dust watched Andrew carefully. "Well, how about your parent's place? That seems like the first place I'd go if I was an insane demon powered thing who was trying to find you."  
  
"Sounds fair." His worried eyes flicked over to the house. "I just hope I stay there."   
  
"I just hope Tucker hasn't done the timeline massive damage already."  
  
"We've got to find him as soon as possible. This could be catastrophic."  
  
"No argument." Dust pulled himself up. "Let's go."  
  
*************  
  
Andrew turned off the vacuum cleaner and unplugged it. There. Nice, clean carpet. All the general housekeeping jobs got neglected when people were fighting wars, but he was sure that having things nice and organised would make people feel better. It gave him something to do as well, so Willow could get on with her job. Her demon-looking-up job, which he could probably help with if she'd actually bothered to ask (after all, he _was_ a demon summoner). He wasn't bitter though, nope. He was one of the good guys now, which meant that he'd help out wherever he could.  
  
"Andrew? Are you…oh. You've vacuumed."  
  
He pulled himself up a little and tried to give Willow a confident look. "I've vacuumed, and dusted, and I wiped down the floors. I even cleaned out the toilet. I was just trying to be productive, you see."  
  
She smiled, just a little. "I see. Well, thanks. We've been so busy lately; everything needed a bit of a clean."  
  
Someone appreciated his work! "Oh, you know, it was nothing."  
  
"Buffy will appreciate it. Look…" She hesitated, and he looked at her expectantly.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Well, you've been trying to help out a lot lately and I don't think you're going to escape…"  
  
"I'm a _good_ guy…"  
  
She held up a hand. "Andrew, you've told me. Look, do you want to go down to the comic shop with Xander this afternoon? He's got a half day off and I know he's been too busy to pick up some of his favourites." She smiled fondly. "He's just a big geek at heart. And if he goes with you he doesn't even have to make an excuse."  
  
Andrew's eyes lit up. "That'd be cool! I'm really behind on some of my titles!"  
  
"Well, it's settled. He'll be here in an hour or two; I'll ask him to get you out of the house as a favour to me. I think he'll buy it."  
  
Andrew grinned at her. A chance to catch up on his reading! Willow wasn't so bad after all.  
  
***********  
  



	7. Part Six

Hooray! Part six, aka the chapter that wouldn't die, is finally here! I'd _really_ love some comments (good or bad) on this bit, peoples. It's twice the length of the other chapters and a lot of work went into it!  
  
Thanks and adoration to my beta readers, Fab and Erica Olson.  
  
Oh, and I now have a livejournal if anyone's interested. It's at __ . Woohoo!  
  
Blinky the Tree Frog  
___  
_  
  
**Disclaimer:**  
The Buffyverse belongs to Mutant Enemy as far as I'm aware. No money being made, no infringement intended.  
  
Spoilers for Season Seven up to at least Episode 12 (Potential). It's set right after.  
  
  
**Part Six**  
  
_"Here comes the world__  
__With the look in its eye__  
__Future uncertain but certainly slight__  
__Look at the faces listen to the bells__  
__It's hard to believe we need a place called hell"_  
  
Devil Inside -INXS  
  
  
Tucker stopped not far from Sunnydale High, sat down, closed his eyes, gathered together his demonic senses, and concentrated on scent.  
  
_...the pungent odour of several cats...the trash can in the nearby alleyway...several vampires who'd crossed the area last night...several people who'd crossed it today...__  
_  
"Sir, are you okay?"  
  
Concentration shattered. He opened his eyes and stared up at the worried looking old women, supremely annoyed. "What?"  
  
She blinked owlishly at him from behind thick glasses. "I'm sorry, you just looked like you might be in pain. Do you need a doctor?"  
  
He talked through gritted teeth. "I'm. Jussst. Fine."  
  
"Oh. Well, it's just that you looked a little..."  
  
Oh for god's sake. Did this lady not get hints? He pulled himself to his feet and snarled at her. "I wasss _concentrating_. Notice I said wasss. Notice that you've completely _spoiled _my concentration. Notice that you're an annoying old bat who doesssn't know when to ssshut up."   
  
"Well! I was just trying..."  
  
That was it. He pushed his face up to her, very deliberately pulled off the sunglasses and blinked at her menacingly. "Go. Away."  
  
She stared at him in shock, then turned and did the best attempt at a run that she could.  
  
Tucker waited until she was at least twenty metres up the road before aiming carefully, concentrating, and ejecting a paralysing dart into her rear end. Wouldn't want her calling attention to him. Not yet, anyway.  
  
He put back his glasses, and scowled. There didn't seem much point in trying the scent thing again anyway. Stopping at random intervals and sniffing around all morning as he trudged across Sunnydale had so far gotten him just as far as using detective work. No, actually the detective work had been better; at least he had some small idea of what he was doing there. It was fine using enhanced senses _generally, _but using enhanced senses to sniff out the scent of one _particular _human was hard.   
  
He supposed he'd better just go to the school. Maybe he could torture someone some of Andrew's old buddies into giving information. Or maybe he could just torture some of Andrew's old buddies. He needed the stress relief.  
  
***************  
  
"Well, I think he may possibly have been here."  
  
Andrew turned away from his survey of the shattered living room and gave his companion a look. "Gosh, you think?"  
  
Dust tried to look serious. "Sorry."  
  
Andrew shrugged and distractedly started to straighten the room up. "Okay, yes, the whole door ripped off its hinges and house torn apart thing does indicate that Tucker was here. Unfortunately, it looks like we've missed him."  
  
Dust helped him pull up an overturned bookcase. "Obviously he decided that he wasn't going to get any help from your Mum. Must've figured out the whole holiday thing."  
  
"Right." Andrew frowned at a mass of wood that might have once been a phone table. "Actually, I think he heard the answering machine message."  
  
"What makes you say that?"  
  
He pointed at the tangle of electronic parts sitting next to the wrecked table. "I think that used to be the answering machine."  
  
"Ouch. Quite the little temper he has there."  
  
"The time trip hasn't made it any better."  
  
Dust righted the couch and sat down on it. "Okay, so we can strike this off the list. I guess we try the next place, right?"  
  
"Unless there's something here that'll give us a clue."  
  
Dust glanced around doubtfully. "Good luck, Watson."  
  
"It was Sherlock who was the detective, Dust." Andrew looked exasperated. "Watson was his student; the one who got everything pointed out to him in the end."  
  
That got a grin. "So I got that reference fairly right then?"  
  
"Remind me why I let you tag along with me again?"  
  
"My scathing wit?"  
  
"Try again." Andrew shuffled through the piles of stuff on the floor.  
  
"To save me from the tedium of ploughing fields in good old Scathck for the rest of my life?"  
  
"Okay I'll give you tha... Aha!"  
  
Dust raised an eyebrow. "You actually found something?"  
  
"Old address book with two pages ripped out. "Andrew smiled triumphantly. "M and L. Wanna take a wild guess why?"  
  
"What... Oh. Mears and Levinson, right?"  
  
"Elementary, my dear Watson."  
  
"Ah, shuddup."  
  
*******************  
  
Tucker carefully walked through Sunnydale High. Schools tended to have a problem with strangers wandering the buildings, so he'd switched on the Tilom demon's camouflage effect and was trying to keep to the shadows as he scouted. Trying was the operative word unfortunately; the wonderful new Sunnydale High had a distressingly low shadow count. The sooner he got out of here, the better.  
  
Right. He was dealing with card gaming geeks. It was study hall in about 15 minutes and card gaming geeks played cards during study hall. They'd probably sequester themselves in one of the two nice study rooms that weren't far from the library. All he had to do was wait, follow them in, and then scare the living hell out of them. Easy. Now he'd better...  
  
He hesitated and stopped. Something was wrong. No, not wrong, something was... malevolent. His senses were prickling and the demon in him snapped at the bit. He frowned and scanned the section of corridor he'd stopped in. What the hell _was _that? Why on earth did he feel so...  
  
He lost his train of thought as his eyes fixed themselves on a door. It wasn't a particularly remarkable looking door; in fact it looked a lot like every other door in the place. The only slightly notable thing about it was the sign next to it that said 'basement'.  
  
He suddenly had a terrible urge to open it.  
  
************  
  
Andrew was writing a comics want-list. Mexico had been tragically sparse when it came to comic stores, and when he and Jonathan had come back to Sunnydale he'd... had other things on his mind. He was therefore well behind on most of his regular titles; he hoped that the store still had a good range of back issues. And there was also the money situation, he still had a little cash left over from his days as a super villain but it had been running low of late and buying the coat, extremely cool as it was, hadn't helped. Still, Xander was going to buy stuff too. He could read Xander's copies of some comics. Except if they were anniversary issues, of course, because then he'd need a copy of his own to keep in plastic for historical purposes. He'd have to talk to Xander and ask what he was going to buy...  
  
Vi wandered into the room and up to Willow, who was back to researching at the other end of the table. "Clem's gone home, " she announced. "He said he was going to get a few of the other demons to stay over at his place for a few days, safety in numbers."  
  
Willow looked up. "He still could have stayed here if he'd really wanted."  
  
She shrugged. "It was pretty hard to get to sleep last night, what with all the girls talking. And he said he didn't want to be that much of a bother."  
  
"Oh well. I guess it's just going to get more crowded from here on."  
  
Vi nodded and frowned at the other end of the table. "What did you do to Andrew?" she said softly. "He's gone all quiet."  
  
Willow grinned. "You want something from Andrew? Dangle the promise of comic books in front of him. I should have thought of that before."  
  
***************   
  
The seal was large and frankly scary looking. It appeared to be made of carved metal, intricate patterns swirling around the likeness of a horned goat.   
  
Tucker stared at it and wondered what the hell it did, and why the hell he'd been drawn to it.   
  
It was highly magical, that was obvious. The very fact that his demon senses were paging him so urgently showed that. And obviously it wasn't a nice, happy magical object. People rarely carved horned goats in nice happy magical objects. He leant forward and tentatively ran a finger over the surface. God, he could _feel _it, tingling up his fingers. There was _power _in this thing. How could he get it out? What did it _do_?  
  
He walked forward and stood on it hopefully. His feet tingled slightly but otherwise, no go. Standing on it didn't activate it. So what did? He stamped on it. Some kind of spell, perhaps? Doing a dance? Hitting it with a mystical object? He knelt down and ran his hands over the carving, hoping to trigger something. When that didn't work either he punched it in frustration.   
  
Great. He had found the whereabouts of a powerful magical object, only to be unable to figure out how to do anything with it. That was just _so _completely and utterly typical of his life lately. Tucker glared at the stubborn thing and did some thinking.  
  
Okay, the seal was a nice bonus for him to play with after he'd killed Andrew, but he didn't actually need to figure it out right away. He could come back to it. No problem. And maybe he could come back with a hostage who could tell him all about it. Like Buffy Summers; she seemed to know about all the weird-ass stuff that happened in Sunnydale. Not that he'd grab Buffy herself, that'd be a little difficult. Her friends though, they wouldn't be too hard to get by surprise when she wasn't around. They were probably the brains of the outfit anyway. Of course, they still might not actually know about the seal... wait a second...  
  
He closed his eyes and concentrated again. Stupid idiot, he'd almost forgotten about that. It'd be easy to tell whether Buffy and co. knew about the seal. All he had to do was find their scents near it and that was proof positive. Must be the frustration; it was really getting to him. Now let's see...   
  
_...rats, rats, and more rats...a pig (the hell?)...old blood, mingling with the dirt and dust...an unknown human...Andrew...Buffy... _what!?  
  
His eyes flew open. Andrew! Andrew had been here! _Finally_,he was getting somewhere! God, of all the places for his idiot brother to have been!  
  
Eyes closed again, he sat down and focussed on Andrew's scent. It wasn't terribly strong, and had to be at least a few days old. Still, if he could just find enough of a trail to follow...  
  
After a few minutes of stumbling through the basement he cursed under his breath. It was just no use. He knew Andrew had been here, could catch faint whiffs of his scent all around. But the trail kept fading in and out and getting overridden by stronger, more recent odours. Damn. He stopped and bit his lip. Well, he knew Andrew had been here. That meant the geeky card players would _have _to know where he was, right? And another bonus: Andrew might know something about the seal that Tucker could squeeze out of him before he died. All was not lost.   
  
He jumped slightly as the school bell echoed faintly above him.   
  
Good. Just in time.  
  
*****************  
  
"...don't know what you think you're doing, but it's not scaring me. And in fact, it's actually just irritating people, some of who are _definitely _not the type of people you should be irritating. I'm just warning you, is all..."  
  
Andrew listened to his younger self fume into the phone for a few seconds more and then carefully put it down and pulled himself out of the booth. "He's still there."  
  
Dust pulled himself up from where he'd been sitting on the nearby stone fence and nodded. "Cool. So, the Mears place next?"  
  
"Well, he wasn't at Jonath... the Levinson's old block, so yeah, I guess."  
  
"Bus or Taxi?"  
  
"It's not far from here, we can walk."  
  
Dust kicked rocks down the pavement as they went. "This is getting kind of ridiculous. It's like we're just one step behind him."  
  
"I guess we should hurry then."  
  
"Maybe we _should _go back Buffy's house and wait there. I mean he is bound to find it sooner or later, isn't he?"  
  
Andrew glanced over. "You were all for this a while ago."  
  
"Just call me fickle. And also worried."  
  
"We really shouldn't risk Buffy finding out about us if we can possibly avoid it."  
  
"But can we avoid it? And how do we know it'll even do any harm?"  
  
"Dust, I don't _know_,okay? Let's...let's just keep on with this for now. We'll go to the Mears', and then the school. If we still haven't found him then...we'll review. Okay?"  
  
"Okay." Dust nodded and picked up the pace. Nevertheless, he couldn't quite shake the feeling that something was going to go terribly wrong.  
  
*************  
  
"...T...Tucker? Tucker Wells? Andrew's brother? Oh my god, what _happened _ to you?" Jamie Stanford stared at the figure that was perched on the end of the Sunnydale Card Gaming Society's table and tried to take another step backwards. Unfortunately, the back wall was refusing to let him.   
  
Tucker smiled, and it wasn't a _nice _smile. "I'm feeling fine. And you?"   
  
Jamie glanced to the side, where Mike and Lee were also pressed against the wall, not looking as though they wanted to answer any time soon. Great, they were leaving it up to him to fend off the crazy person. Thanks a lot, guys.  
  
"Ummm... well, we've been fine. I mean nice. So...nice...nice eyes you've got there." He cringed.  
  
"They're very cool, aren't they?"  
  
"And, and... the claws..."  
  
"Very ssstylisssh, I think."  
  
"Right." There was an awkward pause. Then, "Pleasedon'tkillus!"  
  
Tucker smiled wider. "I not going to kill you..."  
  
"Oh thank _god_."  
  
"...if I get the information I want."  
  
"Uh...yay?"  
  
"Where'sss Andrew?"  
  
Jamie stared at him, petrified. "A...Andrew?"  
  
"Andrew. My brother. Idiot. Geek. Guy who usssed to play cardsss with you all-the-fucking-time! I know he'sss been at the ssschool. Where isss he living?"  
  
"I don't know!"  
  
A claw flicked down and neatly speared Mike's Fourth edition Serra Angel. There was a collective gasp.  
  
"Wrong anssswer."  
  
Mike finally squeaked up from Jamie's right. "We really don't know! Honest! None of us have seen Andrew for like, a year! He disappeared a while ago..."  
  
"I saw him."   
  
Tucker raised an eyebrow and turned to Lee, who was looking as though he vastly regretted opening his mouth.  
  
"Yesss?"  
  
"A couple of weeks back. He...I was walking down Revello Drive and he was going down the street. It...it looked like Willow Rosenberg was dragging him. I remember I thought it was weird...I waved, but I don't think he saw... And then I was walking by three days ago and he was in the Summers' front yard, putting the bins out. I...I think he might be staying there." Lee shrank back against the wall as the expression on Tucker's face darkened.  
  
"I. Don't. Believe. It!" He spat the words out, looking uttering infuriated. "He'sss with _her_?! All the time I've been walking acrossss the whole fucking town and he'sss with _her_?!"  
  
Jamie nodded like a puppet on a string. "Umm... yes? Please don't kill us now?"  
  
Tucker stared at then, furious. "I'm not going to kill you."  
  
"Thankyouthankyou!"  
  
"But I am going to beat the living crap out of you."  
  
They looked horrified. "What? Why?"  
  
Tucker smiled again. "Because I just don't like you very much."  
  
**************  
  
There was an ambulance parked outside the school when they arrived, fresh from a fruitless expedition to the Mears house. Andrew suspected that this didn't bode well.  
  
He and Dust slipped in fairly easily amongst the curious crowds of students and general community members; people always loved a good tragedy. From the general gossip they deduced that a mysterious assailant had beaten three members of the Sunnydale Card Gaming Society to within an inch of their lives. This, decided Andrew, _definitely_ didn't bode well.  
  
"I used to play Magic with those guys", he explained to his companion as they stood off to the side and attempted to look as though they were supposed to be there.  
  
"I thought you didn't know any magic back then?"  
  
"What? Oh. No. It's a card game. Magic: The Gathering?"  
  
"I have no idea what you're talking about, but go on."  
  
"Tucker must have been trying to get them to tell him where I am."  
  
"Do they know?"  
  
"Well no, they don't. Not as far as I know, anyway. But it means he's here, and he's close. I wonder if anyone saw which way he ran off?"  
  
"We could ask around." Dust started. "Oh! Isn't that...?"  
  
Andrew pulled him behind a nearby wall. "It's Buffy. I told you she worked here. We'll just have to make sure we stay away from her."  
  
Dust looked slightly worried. "Well, that's going to make things difficult."  
  
"Not if we're quick." He snuck a glance around the wall and then stripped off his rucksack. "Here, hold this."  
  
"What are you going to do?"  
  
"Get some answers, hopefully. Or, y'know, totally screw things up."  
  
"I'm pulling for the answers solution myself. Want I should keep a lookout for her Slayerness?"  
  
"Please do." Andrew pulled a pen and paper from his pocket, straightened himself up and walked to a female student who stood on the fringes of the crowd, just out of sight of Buffy. "Hello, miss! I'm from the press, would you like to give a statement on what you saw?"  
  
The student turned around and doubtfully looked at his old jeans and faded shirt. "_You're_ a reporter?"  
  
He didn't hesitate. "Certainly, Miss. I'm a reporter for 'Sunnydale Strangeness', a magazine that reports on the more... unusual events that happen in this fair town."  
  
She looked slightly more convinced. After all, reporters for magazines with names like that were bound to be a bit eccentrically dressed. And he did _look_ sincere. "Oh. Umm... What do you want to know?"  
  
He gave her a dazzling smile. "I just heard that this case might have some unusual aspects to it. Wondered whether you could tell me anything about the perpetrator."  
  
She frowned at him uncertainly. "Well... look, you aren't going to put my name on this, are you? I don't want people to think I'm a weirdo."  
  
"Your anonymity is assured."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
He rephrased. "No names if that's what you want."  
  
"Oh. Well..." She bit her lip. "Well, I did see something, but it was pretty weird and I'm not sure that it's even connected."  
  
"Weird is what we do, Miss." He looked at her encouragingly.  
  
"Umm, okay. I think I saw the person who might have done it. I... I got out of class early and I was walking down the corridor when he came out of the basement and started walking towards the rooms that those people got attacked in. He was really odd looking... I mean, he had a big coat and dark glasses, like he was trying to cover something up. And then he saw me looking at him and he looked surprised, like he'd forgotten something important, and then he just... disappeared. Only it wasn't really disappearing, you know? He didn't do it completely, it was more like he just... faded into the background and you could still see him if you looked hard. I know it sounds unbelievable, but it really happened!"  
  
She stopped, suddenly realising that the reporter hadn't written down a word of what she'd said, and was in fact looking at her with an expression of horror. "Uh, hello?"  
  
"He came out of the _basement_?"  
  
"Uh, yeah. Look, do you want me to repeat..."  
  
He suddenly seemed to pull himself together. "No, that won't be necessary. Thanks for your help, I think I've got everything I need."  
  
"You haven't even written anything down!"  
  
He started to walk away. "No need. Photographic memory! Thanks!"  
  
"What? But that's..."  
  
Andrew disappeared around the side of the building, grabbed his rucksack off Dust, and started to walk away.  
  
Dust looked at him questioningly. "What's wrong?"  
  
"He's been in the basement. He knows about the Seal of Danzalthar."  
  
Dust stared at him in horror. "What?!"  
  
"You heard me! We need to find him _now_, before he figures out how to open it!"  
  
"He knows about the Seal? Are you sure? I mean he might have just been... wandering around. In the basement."  
  
"Dust, his body's _swimming_ with demonic essence. If he was down there he's _got_ to have sensed its power. We got to... Damn!" He stopped abruptly and looked even more horrified.  
  
"What _now_?"  
  
"I've been down there."  
  
Dust looked confused. "What?"  
  
"I've been down at the Seal." He turned to look at Dust. "If Tucker's been near it he might have picked up my scent."  
  
Dust looked severely dismayed. "It's got to have been pretty old though, right? He might not have been able to follow the trail..."  
  
"We've got to get back to the Summers'. Now."  
  
"Hang on!"  
  
"What!?" Andrew stopped as Dust grabbed his arm. "We've got to hurry!"  
  
"Ring. We should ring up. To make sure that Andrew's...that you're still there. We're safe if he's there, right?"  
  
Andrew deflated somewhat. "Right. Sorry. We should ring."  
  
************  
  
"Okay, so you need groceries, a new mouse..."  
  
"Doesn't have to be fancy, just as long as it works..."  
  
"And you want me to take Andrew to the comic shop because he's been irritating you about it all day..."  
  
Willow beamed at him playfully. "You're a real pal, Xander."  
  
He gave her a look of mock disgust. "That's me. Good old pally Xander. You know I'm only doing this because you asked really nicely, right?"  
  
"Definitely. And I'm going to say absolutely nothing if you just happen to find a few choice bits of comicy goodness that you feel compelled to purchase."  
  
"That's what I like about you, Willow. You're always so happy to cover for my secret shames."  
  
She grinned at him. "You better get going. Andrew's list of comics is going to start on its seventh page in about two minutes."  
  
"Oh goody." He shook his head in exasperation and walked out.  
  
Willow yawned and stretched. She really needed to have a walk around; she'd been researching nearly all day. Maybe...maybe Kennedy would be finished with her training. They could...  
  
The phone rang, and she sighed and grabbed it.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
Silence.  
  
"Anyone there?"  
  
Willow scowled faintly and put down the phone. This prank caller was just getting irritating. Maybe she could find some hex to put on the phone...  
  
No. No magic. It was a little problem, and there was no need to go that far.  
  
*******************  
  
Andrew slammed down the phone and gave Dust a worried look. "It was Willow."  
  
"Crap!"  
  
"We've got to get back there. I've got a bad feeling about this."  
  
"You might not be out of the house though. It might just be that Willow was near the phone, right?"  
  
"Or it might be that I'm halfway to the store and Tucker's two seconds away from gutting me!"  
  
"Double crap. Well... let's get a taxi then. Or a bus? Is there a bus going past? Andrew?"  
  
Andrew stopped abruptly and shook his head. "Too long. It's going to take too long and even when we get there we won't know whether I'm in the house because we can't go in there and risk someone seeing us!" He turned, walked into the nearest alley, and sat down. "I've got a better idea."  
  
Dust hurried after him, alarmed. "What? Andrew?"  
  
Andrew sat down and rummaged in his pack. "I'm going to summon an Accipiofeles and do an alienatio incantation."  
  
"What! Not again! I _hate_ it when you do that!"  
  
"Do you have a better idea?! Accipiofeles are quick and small; if I do the incantation and transfer my senses I can get to the house, search it to see if I'm there, and then go and find me if I'm not, without anyone seeing me."  
  
"While I sit here nurse-maiding your drooling body. Do you know how _creepy_ that is, Andrew? You're barely breathing; it's like sitting next to a living corpse. And I keep thinking that one day your senses are going to get trapped in the stupid demon or worse, you're going to die while you're in it and I'll be stuck with Mr Comatose forever!"  
  
"Dust!" His expression brooked no argument. "I'm summoning the Accipiofeles now. It'll take about 2 minutes. Call Willow. Talk to her and see if you can get her to tell you where I am without telling her who you are. If you can, great. If you can't, I'm going to do the incantation. Okay?"  
  
He nodded miserably. "Alright."  
  
*************  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Hello, could I please speak to Andrew?"  
  
"He's... hey! How do you know Andrew's living here?"  
  
The voice on the other end hissed what sounded suspiciously like a curse. "I... I saw him outside the other day. I'm a friend."  
  
Willow was sceptical. "Right. You wouldn't happen to know anything about a whole bunch of prank phone calls we've been having, would you?"  
  
"I don't know what you're talking about. Look, I really need to talk to Andrew. Is he there? It's vitally important!"  
  
"Vitally important? Who are you?"  
  
"I'm... Look, I can't tell you. But I need to know where Andrew is at the moment. Please, you've got to help me..."  
  
"But you can't give _me_ any details."  
  
"I'm sorry. I _know_ this sounds weird but I swear I'm a good guy. I just need to know where Andrew is."  
  
"And I need to have a bit of information before I start giving facts like that out to random strangers on the phone!"  
  
"This is important! You have no idea how important this is!"  
  
"You keep saying that! If it's that important take two seconds and give me an explanation!"  
  
This time the sound on the other end was most definitely a curse. The mysterious caller hung up.  
  
*************  
  
When Dust came back from the phone booth Andrew sat cross legged in the middle of the alleyway with a five inch Accipiofeles sitting in the palm of his hand. He looked at Dust questioningly.  
  
Dust gritted his teeth and nodded, and Andrew began to whisper in Latin.  
  
*************  
  
Xander pulled into the shopping complex and glanced over at his companion, who was staring out of the car window with the eager look of an excited puppy. He sighed. "Okay, the Electronics store is nearer, so we're going to get Willow's mouse first."  
  
Andrew turned to him. "I could go ahead and meet you at the comics shop."  
  
"Two syllables, Andrew. Hos-tage." He parked the car and began unbuckling his belt.  
  
Andrew sulked. "I wouldn't try to get away. I keep telling people I'm good now."  
  
"I almost believe you about the not trying to get away thing, but I'm not going to risk it, okay? This should only take a few minutes anyway."  
  
A roll of the eyes. "Okaaay."   
  
Andrew frowned and scanned the car park as they pulled themselves out of the car. Xander flicked him a look. "What's wrong?"  
  
He managed a nervous smile. "Oh, it's nothing. I just got this weird feeling that someone was watching me."  
  
************  
  
_You have no idea how important this is!_  
  
Willow sat at the kitchen table and pondered. Maybe she _should_ have said something. The strange caller had seemed genuinely worried; maybe there was a legitimate reason he couldn't provide details...  
  
"Hey, you're looking particularly grim today!"  
  
She jumped, and then blushed. "Hi Kennedy."  
  
Kennedy grinned at her. "Hi Willow." She sat down with a look of determination. "So, what's bothering you?"  
  
Willow looked a little embarrassed. "It's nothing really. I just had a weird phone call... what was that!?"  
  
Kennedy started as Willow jumped up and stared fixedly at a spot behind her. She turned around. "I don't see anything."  
  
Willow shook her head slightly and grimaced. "Sorry. It was small, probably just a mouse or something. I gotta stop feeling so jumpy."  
  
"Oh?" Kennedy turned back and reinstated her grin. "Am I making you jumpy?"  
  
Willow flushed again. "Not...not jumpy as such..."  
  
Her grin got wider. "You know we're practically alone in the house? Spike's literally dead to the world, Clem's gone home. Vi, and Rona and Molly have gone down to the corner store with Anya. Andrew and Xander... actually I'm not too sure where they went..."  
  
"Comics Kingdom. But don't let Xander know I told you."  
  
"Right, sure. The point is, we're here, and everyone else is mostly gone...God, what was that!"   
  
Both her and Willow jumped up as a small green scaly creature made a huge leap from the top of the cupboard, ran across the table, skidded through the lounge room, and slithered under the front door and away before they could raise a hand.  
  
There was a brief, stunned silence, then Kennedy said. "Y'know, I don't think that was a mouse."  
  
************  
  
_Comics Kingdom. This is the day that Xander took me to the comics store. I can't believe I didn't remember that! Stupid, stupid..._  
  
Andrew/The Accipiofeles sprinted away from the Summers' and towards the shopping complex.   
  
************  
  
Dust sat with his back against the cold alley and watched Andrew's unoccupied body. He hated the alienatio incantation; had hated it ever since Andrew had mastered it two years ago. There was something horribly eerie about leaving your body a blank, staring heap while you stuck your senses into a minor demon. It was just _wrong_. It scared the living heck out of him and he couldn't fathom how Andrew could be so casual about using it.  
  
He bit his lip. Something terrible was going to happen. Something was going to go horribly wrong. He could feel it in the air, and the tension was killing him.  
  
Andrew's body stared vacantly at him and he looked back helplessly. "Please." He said softly. "Please don't screw this up. Please don't let anything appalling happen."  
  
He wasn't sure who he was talking to, but it made him feel better to say it.  
  
**************  
  
Andrew/The Accipiofeles turned the corner of the electronic store that sat on the edge of the shopping complex and nearly collided with himself.   
  
_Whoa! _He twisted around and hurled himself into the nearest stormwater drain, then peeked out with an overwhelming sense of relief.   
  
Andrew from the present was standing on the kerb outside of the store, browsing through a catalogue. Further examination showed that he was waiting for Xander to finish at the register just inside the store.  
  
Buying Willow a mouse. He _remembered_ that now. Stupid memory.  
  
He was still alive though! Nothing had happened! Everything was... was...  
  
No. Oh no.  
  
There was a man a few stores over from Andrew's right. A man with dark sunglasses and a coat. A man who was smiling, and walking towards Andrew with a look that was layered with malicious triumph.  
  
_No!_  
  
*********  
  
"No!" His concentration shattered and Andrew's senses crashed back into his body. Dust jumped at the shout.  
  
"What? What's wrong?!"   
  
"Tucker's there! _Right now!_ Right at this very second!"  
  
_Something has gone horribly wrong_. Dust stared at him in panic. "What?! Where is he? What do we do?"  
  
"The electronics shop at the corner of the shopping complex. The one I pointed out to you earlier. We've... we've got to get there..." Andrew jumped up and started running to the alley entrance, Dust on his heels.  
  
Then he stopped. "No. That's not going to work. We've got to..." He stared wildly at his companion, and Dust could almost see the cogs turning. "We can't protect him and we can't protect Xander. Not like this." And then his face snapped into focus, decision made. "I've got an idea."  
  
He stumbled back into the alley, sat down, and started pulling things from the rucksack. "I'm going to summon something. It won't be strong enough to kill him, but it will distract Tucker for long enough for people to get away." He looked up at Dust. "They're at the electronics store. Xander and me and him. It's not far, turn right at the alley mouth, go 'till you get to the police station, then turn and keep going. You can probably run it. Grab a taxi if you see one, or a bus. You've got to get there, Dust. You've got to distract him until I can summon this thing and then you've got to get them back to the house."  
  
Dust stared at him as though he was mad. "You're going to summon a _demon_ to fight him off? Andrew, we already tried that! He _eats_ demons! You're just going to make him more powerful!"  
  
But Andrew was already shaking his head as he unloaded ingredients. "Not this one. He won't be able to eat this one."  
  
Now Dust was confused. "I thought you said the only demons immune to him took hours to summon!"  
  
"This one doesn't. Dust, go!"  
  
"What do you mean, this one doesn't?" Alarmed, he bent down and grabbed Andrew's arm. "Andrew, what are you going to do?!"  
  
Andrew's head snapped up and he almost shouted. "Dust, _it doesn't matter_! _Think_ about this! Think about what's at stake here. It's not just me that Tucker's going to kill, it's Xander too! _Xander's_ there. And do you know how badly that's going to screw with time? Do you know what this could _do_?"  
  
He grabbed his companion by the collar and hauled him down face to face, stared into his eyes with all the urgency he could muster.   
  
"Dust. Run."  
  
Dust stared at him in horror.  
  
Dust ran.  
  
***********  
  
And at the store, Tucker Wells walked up to his prey and waited.  
  
Andrew looked up vaguely, and then did a double take. "Tucker?! What are you doing here? What happened to you?"  
  
Tucker smiled. "Hello little brother."  
  
***************  
  
  



	8. Part Seven

Here's Part Seven, otherwise known as the evil chapter :-). As always, comments and screams of horror will be adored and loved.  
  
Thanks and adoration to my beta readers, Fab and Erica Olson.  
  
I have a livejournal if anyone's interested. It's at . Woohoo!  
  
Blinky the Tree Frog  
  
  
  
**Disclaimer:**  
The Buffyverse belongs to Mutant Enemy as far as I'm aware. No money being made, no infringement intended.  
  
**Spoilers **for Season Seven up to at least Episode 12 (Potential). It's set right after.  
  
  
**Change**  
  
**Part Seven**  
  
_"Blood makes noise __  
__It's a ringing in my ear __  
__Blood makes noise __  
__And I can't really hear you __  
__In the thickening of fear"_  
  
Blood Makes Noise - Suzanne Vega   
  
Run. Just run. Don't think about the stitch in your side, or what Andrew's planning to do or the dead bodies you might be running towards or...or... Just runandrunandrunand...  
  
God, how had this happened? There should have been more time. They should have been able to find Tucker and stay watching in hiding while they sorted out a proper plan and Andrew took the time to conjure up a nice safe demon that Tucker couldn't eat and then the demon would knock him out and they'd go home and no one would be the wiser and...   
  
Time. It all happened far too quickly and there was no _time_. No time at all and now all he could do sprint down the road and curse at the absence of taxis and...  
  
_Run_. Just run.  
  
***************  
  
"Tucker? Oh my god! Is that really you? I haven't seen you in...in... God, what _happened_ to you?"   
  
Tucker raised an eyebrow. "Something wrong?"  
  
Andrew recovered slightly and hurriedly tried to add a little tact. "Uhh... no, no. I mean... a little. You... you're kinda washed out and... and like you've been under a lot of stress or... or something."  
  
He almost laughed. "I've been under a lot of ssstressss. But I feel a lot better now."  
  
Andrew's expression was a perfect blend of confusion and worry. "Well. Well, it's...uh... nice to see you again."  
  
"Nice to see you too, Andrew. "  
  
"Errr... Yes. Nice." Andrew shifted uncomfortably and snuck a quick look back at the store. Xander was still in the register line talking, but he'd be out any minute and probably wouldn't be very pleased to see his older brother. Still, Tucker had to have seen Xander standing there and he didn't look worried, so it probably wasn't up to Andrew to mention it, right? "So... Umm, you were in Las Vegas last time I heard from you, right? Are you...are you in town for anything?"  
  
"I think it's sssafe to sssay I am."  
  
"Oh. Okay." He hesitated, but Tucker didn't seem disposed to continue his answer. Why was his brother staring at him like that? "Umm. Well. I've been good. Well, not good exactly. Or good at all, actually. Actually I've been pretty bad. But, y'know, things are looking up. Ummm, I've decided to repent my evil ways. And stuff. Are you... are you sure you're okay?"  
  
"Jussst fine."  
  
"Oh. Well." He flicked a nervous glance back to Xander. "Well, I... I might have to go soon. I mean, I'm kinda here with someone, and... and they're kind of in charge. Sort of."  
  
"That'sss a pity. I would have liked to have talked longer."  
  
"Oh? Did...did you have something to tell me, or, y'know, some other reason..."  
  
Tucker looked thoughtful. "Do you remember Tibby?"  
  
Andrew blinked, confused at this change of subject. "The cat we had when we were kids?"  
  
"That'sss her, yesss. Remember how we alwaysss usssed to laugh at her when ssshe caught a moussse?"  
  
"Uh, yeah." Andrew smiled awkwardly at the memory. "'Cause she would never just eat it, she always spent ages toying around with it first, even if..."  
  
Tucker grinned widely.   
  
"Even...uhh..." Andrew took a few steps back. "I uhhh... IthinkIneedtogonow..."   
  
In one swift move, Tucker darted forward and grabbed him by the throat in a vice-like grip.   
  
"No, no. Sssee, I'm planning to torture you for information and kill you horribly. Any objections?"  
  
"Ghhaaack!"  
  
"No? Didn't think so. Let's go somewhere more private then, shall we?" He kicked in a burst of the speed he'd acquired from an Espid demon and in the blink of an eye they were standing in a nice private dark alley.  
  
Sunnydale had a lot of dark alleys, which was handy. He suspected that passer-bys might be a little put out by what he was going to do to his little brother now that he'd finally gotten his hands on him.  
  
**************  
  
In another of Sunnydale's many alleys, an older Andrew sat crossed-legged in a circle of carved stones as he carefully poured a bag of sand onto the ground. He shaped the sand into a rough approximation of a square, then sat back and picked up an elaborately decorated dagger from where it lay in a tangle of objects he'd pulled out of his rucksack. Finally he stood up, took a deep breath, and spoke.  
  
"My name is Andrew Wells, and I beseech thee to listen as I enact this ritual to call forth one of the Demoshaemon. Listen from before me, and listen from behind me, and know that I will honour your presence."  
  
He sat back down. "To bring about your attendance, one must know the symbols of power that honour you." He leaned forward and traced a symbol into the sand using the tip of the dagger, carefully erased it, and then drew another, and another. When he had finished with the fifth symbol he left it there and straightened up.   
  
"And this I do. To bring about your attendance, one must know the language of power that honours you..."  
  
***************  
  
"I don't understand! Why are you doing this!?"  
  
Tucker had loosened the grip around his brother's neck to allow him to talk, but Andrew still looked far from comfortable. He was pinned awkwardly against the alley wall; his arms pinioned above his head by one of Tucker's hands while the other held his neck. He looked terrified.  
  
Tucker waited a few seconds to relish the fear before answering. "I told you. I need information, and then I need to kill you. Ssseemsss pretty sssimple to me."  
  
"But you're my brother. We were friends! Kind of friends, anyway... We practised demon summoning together! You never wanted to kill me before!"  
  
"Timesss change."  
  
"But it's me! It's Andrew! Why would you want to kill me?"  
  
He smirked. "Becaussse you're an annoying little moron?"  
  
"No I'm not! I mean... maybe I am, but that's no reason to kill me. I mean... I mean..."  
  
"Thisss is getting boring. How about I ssstart on the torture?"  
  
Andrew eye's widened in horror. "No! No torture! You don't need to... I don't know anything! I don't know anything at all about anything and you really don't need to..."  
  
There was a call from somewhere out in the parking lot. "Andrew!"  
  
Tucker flicked his gaze briefly to the alley entrance. "Looksss like your buddy'sss calling for you. Ssshould we let him play?"  
  
Andrew squirmed slightly and tried to look brave and resolute. "Uhh... no. You should... you should just leave him..."  
  
"Andrew, where the hell have you gone!? I don't believe this!"  
  
Tucker smiled at his brother. "Oh, I think he'd be interesssting to meet. Call for him."  
  
"No!"  
  
He unsheathed the claws on the hand that held Andrew's neck and let them sink ever so slightly into the skin. "I said, call for him."  
  
"No! Don'tkillmeno..."  
  
They went in just enough to draw blood this time. "Call. For. Him."  
  
Andrew screeched in panic, "Xander! I'm over here!" and Tucker extracted the claws triumphantly.   
  
"Good boy."  
  
Footsteps made their way to the alley entrance, accompanied by a lot of grumbling. "Andrew, you better have a damn good explanation for this... oh."  
  
In one smooth move, Tucker dropped Andrew, darted over to Xander, sent him flying headfirst into the alley's back wall and then neatly grabbed Andrew again before his brother had even managed to react. Damn, he loved demonic powers.   
  
He directed a menacing smile at the man who was now lying in a dazed heap at the back of the alley. "Hello Xander. We went to ssschool together, didn't we? Sssoo nice to see you again."  
  
"What... what the hell..."  
  
Andrew squirmed desperately "How are you _doing_ this?"  
  
"I got sssome upgradesss. Now Xander, I want you to stay there while I have a chat with my little brother here. Don't worry, if he can't tell me what I want I'll be sssure to get to you."  
  
Xander winced and put a hand to his head where a nasty lump was already beginning to form. He managed a defiant face as he struggled to pull himself up. "You... you're expecting _Andrew_ to give you information? Trust me wise guy, he doesn't know _anything_ you'll... wait a... Brother? You're..."  
  
Andrew choked desperately. "It's Tuck...It's Tucker, Xander! Only... only he's all evil and... and strong and demony and..."  
  
"Sssuperior?"  
  
"Whatever happened to you, it didn't make you any smarter." Xander finally got to his feet, swaying ever so slightly. "Put him down, Tucker."  
  
"Or what, you're going to collapssse on me? Ssstay in your corner, I'll deal with you in a minute." He turned back to Andrew. "Now... where were we?"  
  
***************  
  
"He kept saying it was vitally important to know where _Andrew_ was?"  
  
Willow frowned and nodded. "I told you, it was really weird. I refused to say anything, obviously... But Kennedy, he seemed genuinely panicked. I'm beginning to think that maybe I _should_ have... I've had this weird sense since yesterday; like my magic's trying to tell me something's off."  
  
Kennedy reached over and patted her arm. "Willow, you did the right thing. He could have been _anyone_ , even someone connected to the First. And if your magic was telling you something's off, it was more likely warning about the weird little... Accipiofeles?"  
  
"That's how you say it, yeah. And according to the books they're harmless burrowing creatures, kinda the demonic equivalent of a mole. That's not going to account for..."  
  
The phone rang.  
  
Willow gave Kennedy a worried look, then walked over and picked it up.  
  
"Hello? Is this..."  
  
"Willow, it's me."  
  
"Oh. Buffy. Sorry I thought you were someone... So! What's up?"  
  
"The usual. Counselling, shuffling papers, three kids at the school attacked and nearly killed."  
  
"That's terrible! Did you..."  
  
"No dice. Whoever or whatever did it got away before I even realised what had happened. I'm going to have a look around the grounds after school though, just in case. I thought I'd better call to say I'd be late."  
  
"Oh. No problem then."  
  
"Are you okay? You sound a little spooked."  
  
Willow tried to sound supportive. "Oh no, no. Everything's a-okay at Slayer Central. You have fun with the searching."  
  
"Oh yeah, it'll be a blast. Bye Will."  
  
"Bye Buffy."  
  
***********  
  
"...To bring about your attendance, one must know the gestures that honour you."  
  
Andrew used the knife hand to sign several shapes in the air.   
  
"And this I do. To bring about your attendance..."  
  
***********  
  
Almost there. Not far now. Keep running, even though the stitch in your side is awful and you're gasping for breath and your knees hurt from when you tripped over a minute ago and...  
  
This is too important. _Keep running_!  
  
And please, please don't let me be too late, please...  
  
************  
  
"You sssee thessse clawsss?" Still holding Andrew by the neck, Tucker flexed his other hand and popped the claws again. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Xander looking around frantically, seemingly trying to decide whether to make a break for it or stay and try to fight.   
  
He grinned. "Thessse clawsss don't belong to me. I ssstole them, ate them off a demon and ssspat out the bitsss I didn't like. I've ssstolen a lot of thingsss, little brother. I don't let any opportunity passss me by. That's why I want you to tell me how to activate the nice metal ssseal in the basssement of the high ssschool."  
  
Andrew stared at him wide eyed. "I... I don't know..."  
  
The claws flicked forward and sliced a shallow cut down the side of his brother's face. Andrew let out a squeak.  
  
"Don't give me that bullssshit. I _know_ you've been down there. I know you know _sssomething_ . I can feel you trembling, your heart racing. You're not a brave perssson, little brother. Don't try and fool me into thinking you are."  
  
Sensing movement, he twisted an arm around without looking and shot two paralysing darts directly behind him. There was a thump as Xander fell to the ground and the metal bar he'd about to hit Tucker with rolled away. Tucker turned his head and leered. "And you _are _a brave perssson, but you're not very sssmart. I told you to ssstay in your corner."  
  
"...couldn'..jus..."  
  
"And it talksss. Well done. Mussst have a lot of adrenaline in your sssyssstem. You might even be able to ssshake off the paralysssisss in time to mop up the blood."  
  
Andrew whimpered. "Xander!"  
  
He turned back to his prey. "I'd be a little more worried about yourssself, little brother. I'm tired of playing. Tell me everything you know about the ssseal, or I'll peel all your ssskin off and flay you alive."  
  
**************  
  
"...To bring about your attendance, one must breath the air thrice while thinking of you."  
  
Andrew closed his eyes and took three deep breaths...  
  
**************  
  
Dust skidded into the parking lot at about a hundred miles an hour and looked around frantically. A couple of shoppers looked at him oddly and then shrugged and went about their business. There was no sign of Tucker, and no sign of present day Andrew or Xander. What was going on? Where were they!?   
  
Dust forced himself to stop and think. Tucker wasn't going to be standing in broad daylight, he'd attract too much attention. He'd need an out of the way niche. Alleyways. Look in alleyways.  
  
**************  
  
"Jussst tell me what you know, Andrew. I'm running out of patience!"  
  
"...andrew...d...don't..."  
  
"Tell me or I'll kill him too! I'll peel hisss ssskin off in _front _of you."  
  
"Oh god no!"  
  
"_Tell _me. You don't have much time, little brother."  
  
"I... I..."  
  
"TUCKER!"  
  
Tucker's head snapped around and he stared in absolute astonishment at the shortish, brown-haired person who stood panting at the alley entrance.  
  
"How... in... the... living... HELL did you get here?! "  
  
****************  
  
The final part of the ritual. Andrew stared at the rocks, and the sand, and the knife. He'd done everything right up to now, hadn't he? There'd been no mistakes? He'd better have, because this next bit couldn't be done twice.  
  
Still he hesitated, listening to his blood pounding through his veins so loud it drowned out everything else.  
  
No. No hesitation, no fear. This was the only thing he could think to do, and for all he knew, time itself was in the balance.  
  
And so he spoke. "To bring about your attendance one must provide a vessel for you in this world, a liquid vessel made from the summoner himself."  
  
He brought down the knife and sliced open his left artery.  
  
"And that I will."   
  
***************  
  
Dust tried desperately to stand straight and stop gasping. Damn his lack of fitness. But on the positive side: no dead people! Sure, Xander was very weakly trying to pull himself off the ground and had probably been hit by one of Tucker's paralysis darts, but he was still okay and semi-mobile. Now he just had to play 'distract the psychopath'. This'd be fun.  
  
"You... you don't... don't think you can get rid of us that easy, do you?"  
  
Tucker was still staring at him in utter disbelief. Andrew, hitched up against the wall, was relatively forgotten for the moment. "_Here_? You got _here_? How did you get here!?"  
  
"Wasn't that hard. You didn't stop to check whether the Hourwhether you ate had a mate, did you?"  
  
"I don't believe thisss!"  
  
"Believe it. You're never going to get rid of us, Tucker. We know everything you do." Dust watched his adversary carefully. Taunting the power-crazed maniac was generally not a good idea.  
  
Tucker hissed. His fins unfolded themselves and ruffled, and his skin twisted and hardened into a makeshift armour. Combat mode. Dust had _really _pissed him off. Wonderful.  
  
"Oh my god, oh my god."  
  
It was kind of surreal seeing the young version of Andrew. Dust felt like he had to be reassuring. "It's okay, everything's going to be fine."  
  
Tucker's laugh didn't even sound human now. "Oh, you think? What are you going to do now, little man? Fight me with your non-exissstent fighting ssskillsss?"  
  
"I'll manage. I'll do what I can."  
  
"...look, whoever you are... get help... call...call buffy summers..."  
  
He gave Xander an apologetic look and tried to look as though he wasn't frightened out of his brain. "It's okay, I know what I'm doing."  
  
That got another laugh. "Riiight. Where isss he, Dust? Too afraid to face up to himssself?"  
  
"He's not afraid of that. _Or _you."  
  
And Tucker laughed and tilted his head towards the Andrew who was struggling at the end of his arm.  
  
"Doesssn't look that way where I'm ssstanding."  
  
**************  
  
Stay conscious. Stay conscious. Stay conscious and god, that's really bleeding a _lot _ isn't it. Bleeding and pooling in the circle and soaking into the sand and the world was getting fuzzy around the edges... that wasn't good... probably should put pressure on the wound but can't because have to wait for the demon to come and god it hurts and not feeling well, not at all and... glowing. The circle was glowing.  
  
The circle glowed, and the pool of blood and sand in front of him began to pull itself into shape, as though the pool was incredibly deep and something was dragging itself out. Then the form rose, and the figure coalesced, and a 10 foot Demoshaemon halted in front of him, a twitching red snake that was slightly translucent, as though his blood was all that held it together. When it bowed slightly and touched its head to his, however, it felt solid.   
  
Dizzily Andrew reached for a handkerchief and pressed it to his wrist, barely registering that it was immediately soaked. "Ok...okay... hello?"  
  
"Hello. What is it you wish of me, summoner?"   
  
'The Demoshaemon, being summoned from the caster's blood, will instinctively know their language.' Andrew remembered the passage of the old book well. Thank god it had held up.  
  
He was very dizzy. What was he doing again? Oh right. Important. This was important. "There...there's a person... Down the road. Go down the road at the end of this alley, turn at the police...the big tall white building. Keep going until the road ends... there's a place with shops... near there, you might have to look around but near there... there's a person who's got lots of demon...bits in him. And he's going to try to kill two...three people. Tucker. His name's Tucker Wells."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Fight him. The people he's trying to kill... they have to get away. Fight...fight him as much as you can. Make it so he can't hurt them. They have to get away!"  
  
"And when they are away?"  
  
"You can go back... back to where you came from. You... I don't think you can stop Tucker anyway, there's no point in you getting killed... And if you do get killed?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"I'm sorry. Now go!"  
  
The Demoshaemon nodded in respect at this sentiment. Then it flicked out of the alley and down the street, blindingly fast.   
  
Sunnydale's population either did their best to ignore the sight or put it down to a trick of the light. They'd gotten good at that.  
  
***************  
  
"Well, that wasss fun." Tucker smiled at Dust, who was now pinned by Tucker's other hand at the wall next to Andrew. "Now I get two people to torture."  
  
Andrew sent a miserable look to Dust "I'm sorry", he said.  
  
"It's... it's okay. Everything's...ack!"  
  
Tucker squeezed and laughed. "What? Under control? Jussst what did you think you were doing?"  
  
Dust choked. "Wait... waiting..."  
  
His tormenter raised an eyebrow. "Waiting for wh...."  
  
Something large sent him flying across the alley. He slammed against the wall, pulled himself upright, and came face to face with the Demoshaemon.  
  
"Tucker Wells?"  
  
"What?!"  
  
"Fight." And it hit him again.  
  
Dust picked himself up from where he'd fallen in a heap with Andrew. He looked grimly triumphant. "That. You psycho."  
  
Andrew was staring at their unexpected saviour. "Ohmygod! Where'd it come from?"  
  
Dust gave him a look. "That's not so important right now, Andrew! We have to go. Now. Xander, can you walk?"  
  
"Right now...right now even sitting's looking difficult and are we s'pposed to know you?"  
  
"Kind of." He looked down the alley where Tucker was now in full fight mode with the mysterious demon. "Let's just get out of here, now, okay? Andrew, get over here, help me carry Xander. We have to get back to the house. Buffy... Buffy can protect you."  
  
They grabbed Xander and began to carry him towards the car park. "Andrew, can you drive?"  
  
"Uh...yeah. I haven't driven Xander's before though..."  
  
Xander made a face. "I don' think I'm gonna be able to, 'kay Andrew? Jus' try."  
  
"Try. Right... right, I can try."  
  
"Good. Thad's good."  
  
"He tried to kill me! My brother tried to kill me! I don't believe... He just..."  
  
Dust helped find the car keys and they lifted Xander into the back. "He's changed. I mean, _really _changed. He... he did something to himself and it's driven him insane."  
  
"Wasn' he the guy who sicked hellhoun's on the prom?"  
  
"More insane. Okay Xander? It drove him _more _insane." Dust hauled himself into the front and Andrew started the engine. They screeched out of the car park.   
  
When Andrew had steadied both the car and himself somewhat and they were on their way he said, "I also can't believe what it was that saved us! That was a Demoshaemon, you know? They're really rare in our dimension, 'cause of what you have to do to summon them..."  
  
Something in Dust went cold. "To summon them?"  
  
"Yeah." Andrew seemed eager to talk, to distract his mind from what had just happened. "They need a vessel, something to manifest themselves in. And usually it takes a lot of blood to..." Dust yelped, and he jumped and swerved the car slightly. "What?"  
  
Dust was staring at him in horror. "Blood?!"  
  
"Uh, yeah. Lots, usually."  
  
"Stop the car."  
  
"What?"  
  
"whad..?"  
  
"Stop it! He grabbed the hand brake and the car came to a shrieking stop, nearly ploughing into a streetlight.  
  
"What the heck?!"  
  
Dust wrenched open the door and threw himself out. He started to run, and then stopped abruptly and swung around. "Andrew! Get you and Xander back to the house! Buffy can protect you from Tucker, he doesn't want to take her on. Go!"  
  
"But what are you doing?"  
  
Dust gritted his teeth. "I'm going to kill someone. If they aren't already dead."  
  
**************  
  
Andrew blinked at the stones. Pretty stones, with nice carved patterns, sitting in the swirly red. He suspected they belonged to him, but he wasn't too sure. He didn't feel well. Everything was swirly and he wasn't sure which way up he was. Sitting up or lying down or maybe upside down. Weird. He was tired. Sleep now?   
  
"Andrew?!"  
  
Calling. Someone was calling. Was that him?  
  
"Andrew!"  
  
He blinked and tried to pull the threads of his mind together. "...dust?"  
  
There was the sound of running, and Dust dropped down next to him. He was sideways, Andrew thought dizzily. That was weird.  
  
"There's blood everywhere! Oh god, you idiot! What did you do?!"  
  
He had to think for a minute before he could get his mouth to move. "...told you... summoned something..."  
  
"You cut open your wrist! God, you're bleeding everywhere! What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to... Oh god, oh god I can't believe you did this!"  
  
"...had to..."  
  
"You didn't! There had to be another way! I can't... This is the stupidest thing you've ever done!"  
  
He had to giggle at that. "Oh, this is far from the stupidest thing I've ever done", he said.  
  
Then he passed out.  
  
**************  
  



	9. Flashback Two

And here's the next flashback section, aka exposition cunningly disguised as a conversation. Enjoy!  
  
Thanks and adoration to my beta readers, Fab and Erica Olson.  
  
_Blinky the Tree Frog_  
homepages.ihug.com.au/~syntax4/  
  
  
**Disclaimer:**  
The Buffyverse belongs to Mutant Enemy as far as I'm aware. No money being made, no infringement intended.  
  
_Spoilers for Season Seven up to at least Episode 12 (Potential). It's set right after._  
  
  
**Change**  
  
_Flashback Two: Four months ago and ten years in the future..._  
  
"...So then he ran up the side of the building, the lizard going straight after him the whole way. Got to the top, did this little flip, and went totally gymnastic..."  
  
"Really?" Jessica, the council house's resident secretary, nodded encouragingly at Dawn. Technically there were papers she should be dealing with; but a bit of girl's talk never hurt anyone.  
  
"Yeah. But I'm guessing it was mostly CGI; no one does those kinds of stunts anymore. Their poor actors are far too precious." She leaned on the reception desk and absentmindedly pulled at her shoe strap. "Anyway, that's Spiderman number six for you. It was surprisingly good. I mean, you seriously wouldn't think they could keep the quality up, but I really liked it. And damn, Toby Maguire's aged well."  
  
Jessica nodded in agreement. "I guess I'll take up Trish's offer to see it with her Thursday then. It sounds like fun."  
  
"It was, yeah." Dawn nodded, and then broke into a grin as the council house door opened. "And speaking of incredibly geeky things, look what the night dragged in!"  
  
Andrew smiled at her as he and Dust wearily entered, wiped their feet on the house's incredibly ornate doormat and walked up to the reception desk. "Hey Dawn."  
  
"Hey back." She gave him a chastising look. "Where the heck have you two been? I haven't even got a message in three months! You didn't get completely stuck in another dimension again, did you?"  
  
Dust looked rueful. "Not another dimension, no. We did spend a lot amount of time wandering the outback, though. It gets really _hot_ there."  
  
She grinned again and raised an eyebrow in mock surprise. "Well colour me shocked. So what brings you back to the council house? Trouble?"  
  
Dawn blanched as Andrew's face took on a look of faint apology. "Oh god, it _is_ trouble. Oh well, guess it'll give me an excuse to exercise my Watcherly duties. It's been slow lately."  
  
Andrew looked amused. "Isn't that a _good_ thing?"  
  
"Well sure, if you're going to put it in the terms of the good of humanity and stuff..."   
  
"Which, y'know, most people tend to do."  
  
"I think I've been in this game too long. It's getting that I'm almost nostalgic for the good old apocalyi we had way back then."  
  
Dust frowned. "Apocalyi?"  
  
"I've officially decided that's the plural of Apocalypse. I really have been in this game too long."  
  
"Ever since you were a shiny glowing ball of energy, in fact", said Andrew helpfully.  
  
She snorted and shook her head slightly in amusement. "So what is it?"  
  
"What is...?"  
  
"Trouble?"  
  
"Oh. Right. That would be my brother."  
  
"Mr Hellhound?"  
  
"That brother, yes. He's actually my _only_ brother, as a point of fact..."  
  
Dust butted in helpfully. "He's gone evil, insane and powerful. Little help here?"  
  
Dawn blinked. "He's..."  
  
"Gone evil, insane and powerful." Andrew looked glum. "What he said, essentially."  
  
"Okay, _how_...?"  
  
"Well, it's kind of a long story, but it can be condensed a little."  
  
Dust pulled himself onto the reception desk to sit, oblivious to Jessica's annoyed glance. "I'll do the condensed version. Andrew doesn't get the whole 'make it shorter' thing."  
  
"It's just way too hard!"  
  
"Guys? Focus?"  
  
"Right, sure." Dust pulled himself together. "Okay, well the whole problem started a couple of months ago in Australia. We'd just helped out a bunch of Aborigines with this demon and we scored a cool whirly thing which, incidentally, I have now been informed is actually called a bull roarer..."  
  
"Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the shorter version."  
  
Dust gave Andrew a look. "Oh shut it. Anyway, that night Mr Sarcasm over there had this weird kind of psychic flash thing of Tucker sitting in Ohio, having eaten something. Since he doesn't normally have weird psychic flashes, we thought it was a little strange, but it didn't seem that serious at the time so we left it.   
  
Andrew nodded. "Except then it happened again."  
  
"And again, and again, and so on. He kept seeing Tucker in different places and had this bizarre sense that he'd eaten someone or something."  
  
Dawn raised an eyebrow. "You're right, that _is_ bizarre."  
  
"We decided at this point to find out what the hell was going on, so we started using the flashes to trace him. Since this is the condensed version I'll just say we found him eventually."  
  
"Hooray!"  
  
He glared at his companion. "We found him, and he was really... well..."  
  
Andrew sighed. "Nuts."  
  
"Nuts pretty much sums it up. We talked to him... he was pretty incoherent but between the ravings about how powerful he was, the threats about how he was going to tear all his old enemies apart, and some deluded screaming about the local hotel's ice cream, we managed to get the basic story."  
  
"And I can really see I'm going to love this," said Dawn.  
  
Andrew nodded. "It gets better."  
  
"Apparently he managed to summon this demon according to some bizarre ritual and the demon granted him powers. And not just any powers either, powers that allow him to keep getting _more_ powerful. He eats demons."  
  
"He _eats_ demons?"  
  
"Not exactly literally. Well, I mean, sort of literally... He kind of grabs them and sort of... _inhales_ them into his mouth. These huge demons, as big as him, and he just swallows them like they're those squishy little jelly bear things they sell at the store down on the corner!"  
  
"Ewww." Jessica wrinkled her nose.  
  
"That's about it. It's sooo disturbing to see. Anyway, he does this whole swallowing thing that looks like it shouldn't even be possible, then he actually pulls bits of the demon into himself."  
  
"Bits?"  
  
"Powers. Talents. Extra attachments. Whatever he wants. He takes the bits he wants and leaves the bits he doesn't, and then he spits out this desiccated demon corpse on the ground."  
  
"Unless it's a vampire, which just turns to dust," Andrew added.  
  
"Whatever! The point being, he keeps eating more of these things and he keeps getting more powerful! We tried to reason with him, and that didn't work. Then we started tracking him with Andrew's flashes to see what he was doing and it was mainly crazy wandering, like he was testing out a new toy he'd got. Until..."  
  
"He tried to kill people. Not just demons, _people_."  
  
Dawn looked alarmed. "He eats people?"  
  
Andrew shook his head. "No. That's the point. He didn't try to kill them for any real purpose, he tried to kill them because one of them accidentally bumped into him and he tripped over. There wasn't any _reason_, just lashing out. No restraint. He's... he's really and truly lost it. Whatever he did... I can't even see my brother there anymore, Dawn. It's madness."  
  
Dust nodded. "Just insanity. When we managed to get the poor people away all we could think was 'we have to get him off the streets'. So we tried..."  
  
Dawn cut in, looking exasperated. "You didn't think of contacting us straight away?"  
  
They looked uncomfortable. Andrew made a face. "Well, y'know. We thought maybe we could deal with it there and then."  
  
"And that obviously worked well."  
  
"It almost did! Andrew summoned this Terepi... Terapi..."  
  
"Teraepi."  
  
"Teraepi demon, and we cornered him, but then Tucker got the upper hand and...well... he kinda..."  
  
Dawn sighed. "Let me guess. He ate it and got more powerful?"  
  
Dust looked sheepish. "Err... yes."  
  
"You sent a demon after someone who eats demons. Well done, guys."  
  
Andrew had the grace to look slightly embarrassed. "We thought we could take him by surprise before he got the upper hand."  
  
Dust was rueful. "We were wrong, basically. So we ran away like the pansies we are and decided to come get help. Since we weren't all that far from here..."  
  
"We took the next bus."  
  
"Oh, and also, Andrew told him about how he can track him and now he wants to kill us with extreme prejudice."  
  
Dawn's eyes widened. "You _told _him?"  
  
Now Andrew was practically cringing. "It kinda slipped out. I mean, I was trying to be intimidating. You know? You can't stop us, we'll always find you..."  
  
Dust raised a hand. "I'd just like to say that I had nothing to do with this particular stuff up. Many other hideous mistakes may be attributed to me, but this one was all him."  
  
"Thanks so much, faithful companion."  
  
"No problem, oh great summoner."  
  
Dawn took a deep breath. "Oookay. First of all: what's with these psychic flashing things? Any ideas?"  
  
"Nothing certain," Andrew replied. "Best guess is that whatever the demon did to him is so weird and powerful it sometimes reverbs through me because I'm sensitive to demony things and I'm connected to him by blood."  
  
She frowned. "It's always got to be blood."  
  
Andrew shrugged. "Blood's a powerful thing. That's why it gets used in so many rituals, actually, but that's kind of irrelevant, so..."  
  
"Right." Dawn started to pace as she thought the situation through. "We have a crazy powerful monster thing which is just going to get more powerful the longer it gets left. You can track him. He knows this, and wants to kill you. I think Slayer escort is the way to go. I'll get someone to travel with you and you can corner him again with someone he _isn't_ going to eat. We'll... try to be non-lethal if possible, okay? You think he's still take-downable with one Slayer, or do you need more?"  
  
"One should do. He hasn't eaten anything since we ran away from him, I would know."  
  
"Okay. So let me see." She bit her lip. "Abby's on a job, and Erica's still recovering from getting thrown through a glass door last night, right Jess?"  
  
Jessica pulled up files on her computer. "That's right. She'll be a day or two. You could try Emma, but she might not be ready for something like this. Oh, wait a second, we could just use..."  
  
"Chao Ahn!" Dawn smiled as the woman in question walked into the reception area and looked startled.  
  
"Dawn? Why do I have the feeling I will not like what you're going to ask?"  
  
Dust grinned. "Hi Chao! You transferred back here _again_!"  
  
The Asian Slayer smiled. "I am not here permanent, just staying for a few months. I was... restless where I was. I fear I am beginning to like changing scenery as much as you two."  
  
"Cool!"  
  
"And you always come back here too, it seems." She nodded respectfully to Andrew and smiled. "Hello Storyteller."  
  
He nodded back gracefully. "Hello Slayer."  
  
Dawn looked apologetic. "I know you're just settling in here, but Andrew and Dust have a bit of a problem that could do with some butt kicking. You up for it?"  
  
Chao Ahn gave her an understanding look and nodded. "I would," she said, "be happy to help."  
  
***************  
  



	10. Part Eight

Thanks and adoration to my beta readers, Fab, Erica Olson and Stephen Lord.  
  
I have a livejournal if anyone's interested. I'm called blinkytreefrog. Woohoo!  
  
  
**Disclaimer:**  
The Buffyverse belongs to Mutant Enemy as far as I'm aware. No money being made, no infringement intended.  
  
**Spoilers** for Season Seven up to at least Episode 12 (Potential). It's set right after.  
  
  
**Change**  
  
**Part Eight**  
  
_"As lucid as hell__  
__These images moving so fast__  
__Like a fever__  
__So close to the bone__  
__I don't feel too well"_  
  
Pineapple Head - Crowded House  
  
The Demoshaemon twisted and ducked and hissed and lunged. Tucker screeched with anger as he used claws to slash and fiery breath to burn. The fight was brutal and unremitting; no mercy was spared.   
  
Tucker fought with little skill but much power and white-hot fury at the _nerve_ of the creature that stood before him. He'd _had _Andrew, for god's sake!   
  
In contrast to Tucker's rage, the Demoshaemon's movements were careful and measured and precise and...   
  
Not enough.  
  
To the untrained eye, the fight looked even. Only an expert would be able to see the Demoshaemon beginning to tire ever so slightly.  
  
**************  
  
"Omigod, omigod, omigod..."  
  
"I don't believe this! The First is in retreat! We're supposed to be safe for the moment!"  
  
"Kennedy, please! Okay Xander. Just lie back for now. I think it'll wear off eventually..."  
  
"Omigod! He tried to kill me! My brother tried to kill me..."  
  
"So we bloody heard. Look, has someone called Buffy?"  
  
"I did straight away. I don't have Slayer powers; doesn't mean I'm stupid..."  
  
"Kennedy! Not helping!"  
  
"He just grabbed me and put me against the wall and..."  
  
"Will someone shut the boy up? He's been rambling for the last five minutes!"  
  
"_Everyone's_ been rambling for the last five minutes. Can people please just _BE QUIET_?!"  
  
The Summers residence went suddenly silent. Kennedy, Xander, Spike and Andrew looked uneasily at Willow.   
  
She took a deep breath and tried not to look threatening. "I... sorry. It's okay, I just got a little... So! Buffy's coming, did you say? Kennedy?"  
  
Kennedy nodded. "School's not out for an hour and a half though. She said she was going to fake sickness. Again."  
  
Willow looked worried. "That's not going to be good for her work..."  
  
"Yeah, well thads not gread Will, but I think this is kinda impordant, 'y'know? I feel like I've bin to the dentis' all ober..."  
  
Kennedy glanced at Xander. "Willow said you'd be alright."   
  
Spike frowned at her. "Still got a nasty demonic thing out there, though."  
  
"It's not a nasty demonic thing! It's my brother!"  
  
"Who happens to now be a nasty demonic thing. Same nasty demonic thing we dealt with last night, by the sound of it. 'Cept last night it was only trying to kill demons. Something you're not telling us?"  
  
"Andrew's a demon? God, I knew nothing human could be that annoying!"  
  
"What? I'm not a demon!"  
  
Willow sighed and gave Spike a look. "Kennedy, he's not a demon. Spike knows that. He's just pulling your leg."  
  
"But Tucker _does _look all demonic! He must have made some kind of dastardly pact with a force of horrible evil!"   
  
Xander grimaced. "Andrew, for the lub of god..."  
  
Willow patted his arm awkwardly. "Guys, let's just calm down and wait for Buffy to... Oh, damn. Are we sure that Anya and the potentials are okay?"   
  
Kennedy frowned. "They went down to the corner store."  
  
"And Tucker's still out there."  
  
"He was fighding a big demony thing last we saw."  
  
"A Demoshaemon. They're this really rare demon that..."  
  
"Andrew, _okay_." Willow bit her lip. "Have they got a cell phone? We'll warn them if we can. If Tucker's really a big threat it might be better if they stayed in shelter until Buffy can escort them back..."  
  
**************  
  
The Demoshaemon hissed, its head flicking from left to right as it looked for an opening. Backed into an alley corner, it looked visibly worse for wear. Tucker smiled victoriously, easily shifting himself from side to side to block any sudden moves the snakelike demon made. It was worn down. He was going to win, and then...   
  
He moved a fraction closer, relishing the panicked twitching this action produced in his opponent. This was just so much fun. The glory of the fight! The anticipation of the kill! God, who _wanted _ humanity? It was nothing compared to this! He moved again, and the Demoshaemon pressed itself back into the wall. They stared into each other's eyes, oblivious to anything else. Almost, almost...  
  
_Now_. He lunged forward, slamming the Demoshaemon against the wall and pinning it, claws pressed on what he imagined was its throat. It must be, because his adversary went still, its eyes still looking at him warily. Tucker smiled in anticipation and carefully flexed his jaw muscles. Lunchtime. He leaned forward, barely able to disguise his delight. This was going to be good. This thing had given him a good run for his money. It had _power. _This was just...  
  
And then the demon cocked its head at him and its eyes blinked slowly just once, and it dissolved away.   
  
Tucker started back. What the hell?! Where had it gone? And what was... He looked down at his arms and realised they were covered in blood. Familiar smelling blood. Blood that came from...  
  
He hissed in fury. "_Andrew_!"  
  
**************  
  
"We've got a bleeder!"  
  
Emily cursed under her breath as the paramedics veered Sunnydale Hospital's latest patient quickly through the doors. God, not another one.  
  
She dropped the clipboard she'd been looking at and hastened up to the paramedics, keeping pace with them as they wheeled the patient to emergency. "Let me guess," she said. "Deep lacerations to the neck?" Emily had been working in Sunnydale for long enough to know how abnormally prevalent these types of injuries were.  
  
One of the paramedics, Mike, shook his head. "Left wrist. Deep cut, looks like glass or a knife."  
  
She frowned. "Self inflicted?"  
  
"Guy who brought him in claims he tripped over. Said he heard him yell and found him bleeding profusely." Mike jerked his head to a pale looking brown haired guy with blood streaks down his clothes that was following anxiously. Several other nurses gathered around as Doctor Richards hurried up.  
  
The Doctor flicked his eye from the brown haired guy to the patient. "He's unconscious, breathing regular... Nurse Jones, could you get Nancy to get some details from his companion pronto? I'll need a blood type especially; I think he's going to need a transfusion."  
  
Emily nodded and hurried off. Never a dull moment...  
  
************  
  
Dust stood numbly in the corridor and stared into the emergency room at the crowd of people that were gathered around Andrew. He felt like he should be standing next to them demanding answers about what they were going to do. Except he knew nothing about medicine, so what was the point? He only barely remembered the number you were supposed to ring to get an ambulance, and he'd only been in a hospital twice before. They didn't have this kind of health service in Scathck.   
  
God, there _had _to have been something else he could have done. The _idiot._  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
Dust jumped and looked up at the woman who was standing next to him with a clipboard and a sympathetic smile. "Yes?" he managed.  
  
"You came in with him?" She nodded at Andrew, and when Dust nodded back in reply she continued, "I'm going to need to get some details. Do you know his blood type, firstly? They're probably going to have to do a transfusion."  
  
"I think he's got medical details in his wallet," Dust said, relieved that there was at least something he could do. He rummaged around in Andrew's rucksack and managed to produce the wallet, then checked through the cards until he found one that said 'Medical details' in big red letters. There was a sudden surge of panic when he realised it contained Andrew's date of birth. Andrew had aged well, but he _really _didn't look twenty.  
  
Okay, be surreptitious. He dropped the card and managed to scratch out the year while picking it up. Lucky the thing was cardboard.  
  
The nurse took it and nodded. "Thank you. I'll just be a second."  
  
He waited while she went over to the doctor and talked in a hushed voice, then came back. "Okay." She said. "So his name's Andrew Hayward?"  
  
Dust nodded. Andrew had made a habit of using a fake last name, and for once Dust was relieved instead of thinking him paranoid.  
  
"He was born in... I'm sorry, the year's unclear."  
  
"Umm, seventy three. Sorry about that."  
  
"That's alright." She scribbled something on her clipboard. "Any medical conditions you know of that aren't on this card?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Address?"  
  
"We don't really have one."  
  
"Itinerant?"  
  
"I don't know what that means. We're travellers. Does that mean travellers?"  
  
"Generally, yes." More writing. "And this was an accident?"  
  
Dust tried to look sincere. "I didn't see what happened. I think he tripped over and his arm fell on something."  
  
He thought she looked a little doubtful, but he might just have been imagining it.   
  
"Right." She wrote something else on her clipboard and then looked up at him again. "Are you family, may I ask?"  
  
"I... no. Not family, no."  
  
She nodded and ticked something. "Right." She coughed a little uncomfortably. "And are you his partner?"  
  
Dust looked slightly confused. "Umm... I guess? We've always been pretty equal..."   
  
The nurse blinked at him, and then smiled slightly. "I'm sorry, let me rephrase. Are you his significant other?"   
  
Dust stared incomprehensively. "Well, I like to think I'm fairly significant..."  
  
The nurse stopped writing and looked at him suspiciously. He gazed back, genuinely baffled.   
  
The nurse sighed. "Are you lovers?"  
  
"_What_?" He gaped at her. "No! I mean, not that I have anything against... But why would you... what were you... oh. Oh! That's what you were... what you wanted to..."  
  
She smiled apologetically. "That's it, yes. I'm sorry about that."  
  
He looked embarrassed. "That's okay. Sorry, I just... I'm not from here, some words I get a little..."  
  
The nurse nodded at him reassuringly. "That's quite okay. Now, just one or two more questions?"  
  
**************  
  
Buffy parked her car at the shopping centre, locked it up, and pulled out her cell phone. She talked for a few seconds, listened, frowned, and started off in the general direction of the alley Tucker had been in a few minutes ago.   
  
Tucker was no longer in the alley. For the last few minutes he'd been sitting on the roof of a nearby building, seething and trying to plan his next move. Then the Slayer had suddenly turned up, and now he was pressed down on the roof with the Tilom demon's camouflage turned on, observing her every move.   
  
He watched with interest as she walked into the alley, frowned at the pool of blood that was congealing just inside, and spoke on her phone. It looked like a heated conversation from the way she kept frowning and raising her voice as she examined the alley, but even with his heightened hearing he was too far away to hear anything but the occasional word. The implication was clear, however. The little moron and his keeper must have made it home and contacted her, which meant that she now knew who he was and why he was here. She was far from knowing the full story but this was still incredibly irritating. Buffy would be sure to keep an eye on this era's Andrew from now on. He briefly considered running ahead of her right now and storming the Summers while he was darn sure she wasn't there, but...  
  
She wasn't the only powerful person there. He smelt the vampire she'd been with the night before all over the yard, which meant he probably lived there. Worse, there was someone in there that _radiated _magic. The Summers residence was not a safe place to be. His eyes followed Buffy as she stood in the alley and moved carefully around in a circle, as though she was trying to perceive something on the edge of her senses. So what would he do now? The Andrew from his time was here and probably relatively defenceless even despite the weird blood-spell demon thing he'd done. Problem was, Tucker had no idea where to find the bastard. He'd followed Dust's scent to the car park after washing the blood off his arms, but Andrew's annoying little sidekick had gotten into some kind of vehicle and the trail had faded.   
  
Present day Andrew was being guarded, and future Andrew was god knows where. This sucked. He was going to kill both of them for this, one at a time. First though, he needed to get strong enough to be able to take on Buffy and her lackeys. Swallowing a few more demons would help, but he really needed something more hardcore. How about finding out about that Seal? It was riddled with dark magic, it had to be... Hang on; was Buffy looking in his direction?  
  
He watched in surprise as Buffy started to walk over to the fire escape on the side of his building. Shit! What the hell was this?! Some kind of super sense? Since when did she have super senses?   
  
He slid back hurriedly. Time to make a strategic retreat.  
  
**************  
  
Some time later, Buffy yanked open her front door and strode in, casting a worried look at Xander on the couch. "Sorry I took so long to get back, guys. I thought I sensed Tucker in the Alley, but it was a no-go. Then I went and picked up..."  
  
Anya came in behind her, scowling. She was closely followed by a trail of nervous potentials. "Then she picked us up from where we were cowering in the corner store. I'm getting sick of weird creatures trying to kill me! I've already got demon assassins after me. I don't need this as well!"  
  
Andrew glowered. "It's not a weird creature, it's my brother!"  
  
"So that means it's your fault that I can't even go shopping? Will he go away if we just give you to him?"  
  
Vi was still condensing the last part of the conversation. "Wait a second? Demon assassins are after you and you took us to the store?"  
  
"Guys, please!" The group begrudgingly fell silent as Buffy glared at them. "I need a proper explanation of what happened, okay? Willow told me a bit of it on the phone, let's hear the whole story."  
  
************   
  
Andrew groaned as he swirled vaguely back to consciousness. Soft. Soft bed. He was lying on a soft bed and blurred voices whispered incomprehensible words in the background...  
  
"...stat..."  
  
"...need some blood..."  
  
"...crash victim in ward three..."  
  
"...nurse lily?"  
  
_Nurse_. _Blood_. Hospital words. Was he in a hospital? Hadn't he been in an alleyway? He managed to open his eyes and then groaned again as his body let him know with full force just how crappy it felt. His head ached, his arm felt like it was on fire, his mouth was dry, and there was a nurse looking down at him shining a torch in his eyes.   
  
He flinched. "Stoppit!"  
  
She rewarded him with a grim smile. "Welcome back to the world, Mr Hayward. What's your first name?"  
  
He blinked at her. "Andrew?"  
  
"How many fingers am I holding up?"  
  
He pulled his wits together and tried to remember how counting worked. "Two?"  
  
"Well done! Do you know what happened to you?"  
  
He hedged his bets. "I... I think I cut myself. I'm not sure how..."  
  
"That's slightly worrying, but we'll wait for a while to see if the event comes back to you. You've lost a lot of blood, Mr Hayward. We had to stitch up your arm and give you a transfusion, but you seem to be reacting well to the treatment. We'll keep you here in emergency for the moment but we're short of beds... you don't have health insurance?"  
  
He sighed to himself. The American hospital system sucked. "Not here, no. Was... was there someone who was with me?"  
  
"Mr... Dust?"  
  
He managed a watery smile. "Yeah."  
  
"He was in the waiting room. I think he's actually gone to change his clothes; they were a little messy. Just lie back for now, Mr Hayward, okay? You need to rest. We'll give you some painkillers for the arm if you need them."  
  
"I'm okay," he said. Then, as she hurried away, he looked around for a way to get out of this place.  
  
***************  
  
"Okay, let me get this straight. You're saying this guy knew who you both were, helped you get away from Tucker, then jumped out of the car halfway back to the house and ran away?"  
  
Xander nodded weakly. "That's about it, Buff. Can we say major weirdness?"  
  
"I can say major weirdness for the whole thing. And he knew Tucker too?"  
  
Andrew jiggled nervously on the couch. "They talked like they knew each other. Or more like they hated each other." He thought for a second. "Actually, it was kind of like Tucker's now this super-villain and that was his arch-nemesis and we just got in the middle of one of their ongoing battles..."  
  
"Ongoing battles? Andrew, this guy couldn't even fight! He waited for the Demonsha-thingy to come along..."  
  
Willow interrupted. "So he knew the demon was coming, right? Meaning he probably knew who summoned it."  
  
Buffy paced distractedly. "Okay, since I have no idea where Tucker ran off to and I doubt he's going to give us any information on what the hell is going on here anyway, I think finding this guy should definitely be our next move. It's obvious he's got some information about what's happening, at least."  
  
"And about why Tucker's trying to kill me!"  
  
Kennedy rolled her eyes. "It couldn't just be that he's sick of you?"  
  
"He hasn't even seen me for months! And we were getting on okay then. Though, he didn't have the whole demon thing going on then either..."  
  
Xander frowned. "The little guy did say that he'd gone insane."  
  
"Which means that the 'little guy' knows a hell of a lot more than us and we _need_ to find him!" Buffy looked thoughtful. "Look, you were driving home and he jumped out? What did you say to him?"  
  
Andrew thought about it. "Well, I was telling him about the Demoshaemon. See, they're really hard to summon to this dimension 'cause you need a lot of the caster's freshly spilled blood..."  
  
Willow held up a hand. "Hang on! Was that when he got worried? When you said that?"  
  
"Umm... yeah, actually."  
  
Willow looked triumphantly at Buffy. "Okay, so that fits in perfectly. He _did_ know the person who was summoning the demon, but he didn't know what it involved. So as soon as he heard it from Andrew..."  
  
Buffy nodded in understanding. "He ran off to find the guy. He realised he might be lying there bleeding to death."  
  
Willow smiled. "Exactly. And, taking it one step further, if he was right and his friend _was_ bleeding, he more than likely would have taken him to..."  
  
"The hospital!" Xander looked pleased. "So we have a possible starting point, in any case. That is of the good."  
  
Buffy was relieved. "Muchly of the good. Okay, I have to get Dawn and Amanda back here first and then I'll swing around to the hospital."  
  
Spike cocked an eyebrow. "Don't think you should get there quickly?"  
  
"If the summoning takes as much blood as Andrew's saying, the guy's friend isn't going to be in a state to bounce out of the hospital right away. Potential Slayer and Sisterly safety comes first. It won't take long, anyway."  
  
"I can try to do a bit of hacking while you're there; confirm that the hospital has a recent bleeding victim. They might not have computerised the record yet if it's a busy night, though. Oh! What about the fact that he wanted to know about the Seal?" Willow asked. "Should we worry?"  
  
Buffy sighed. "Well, he doesn't seem to know anything about it, so just keeping a regular check-up and making sure it's covered is about the best we can do there. I'll take a look while I'm at the school. Andrew, get yourself ready, I'll pick you up when I get back."  
  
Andrew jumped up. "I'm coming?"  
  
"Andrew, I don't know what this guy looks like and Xander's still half paralysed. Yes, you're coming!"  
  
Anya stood up. "I'll come too. You might need another person to look, and I want to get some deodorant at the hospital gift store since I forgot to grab it before and I won't be allowed out again tonight."  
  
Buffy looked at her.  
  
"What!?"  
  
She sighed. "Okay, fine. I'll be back soon."  
  
************  
  
Dust filled up a cup at the water cooler and paced down the hospital corridor back to the waiting room. He was worried, and his opinion of hospitals was rapidly going downhill. He'd attempted a couple of times to talk to Andrew but nurses kept apologising to him and saying that he was resting and they were really only allowed to let family members into emergency and if he'd just wait in the waiting room they'd be sure to give him updates. Except they weren't, and he hadn't even seen Andrew since they'd brought him in, and he'd drunken enough cups of complimentary spring water to sink a ship and Tucker was still out there who knows were and it was All. Falling. Apart. He sighed, turned into the waiting room...  
  
And nearly had a heart attack as Buffy, Andrew and Anya walked through the hospital doors and up to the reception desk.  
  
He stood stock still for two seconds, and then threw himself into the men's room. Crap!  
  
************  
  
Andrew was in a curtained off area of a large emergency ward, which meant that they wouldn't directly see him getting up, but he might have some explaining to do when he started to walk away. And there was also the matter of the drip in his unstitched-and-bandaged arm, which was going to hurt like heck to pull out. And where was his shirt, anyway? Wait, it probably had blood all over it. He'd have to find Dust and get another. That was okay. A hospital robe would do for now for his top half. Right, he'd better get going...  
  
He pulled himself upright, and promptly fell down again as the world tilted alarmingly.  
  
Crap.  
  
***********  
  
Buffy smiled cheerily at the receptionist. "Hi! I was wondering whether you could help me? I'm trying to find someone who was admitted today?"  
  
The receptionist looked bored. "Name?"  
  
"Well, I don't really have one. You see, we witnessed this... accident, and we wanted to see if the... person, was okay. Right guys?"  
  
Anya and Andrew nodded with enthusiasm and a complete lack of subtlety.   
  
The receptionist was unimpressed. "Do you have a description?"  
  
"Well... Not as such. It was... all a blur really." Buffy's smile was beginning to look a little strained. "But he would have come in with a guy who was... umm... Andrew?"  
  
"Kinda short and thin, with brown hair and wearing jeans and a brown shirt!" Said Andrew helpfully.  
  
"Yeah. Wearing that." Buffy looked hopeful.  
  
The receptionist sighed loudly and gave her a nasty look. "Look, miss. This is a busy hospital, and there are people coming in all the time. And even if I could somehow miraculously identify your person with the very vague description you've given me, unless you're family I can't release any details. I suggest you go home and check tomorrow's paper to see if they mention anything there. Otherwise, I can't help you."  
  
Buffy stared at her. "But..."  
  
The receptionist gave her an icy smile. "I. Can't. Help. You."  
  
She deflated. "Fine. Thanks so much."  
  
"My pleasure."  
  
************  
  
Deep breaths. Take deep breaths and ignore the dizziness. It'll pass. Stay upright. You're fine.  
  
Andrew finally managed to pull himself shakily to his feet, albeit with a great emphasis on 'shakily'. His arm hurt like hell and he felt like he'd been smacked in the head. God, and he was going to walk out? This was nuts. Except...  
  
He didn't have _time _to be sick. He didn't have _time _to feel like hell. Tucker was still out there, and Tucker was _his _responsibility because _he _was the one who hadn't managed to stop him before he got this far.  
  
He closed his eyes. Build up your adrenaline. You are going to do this. This _needs _to be done. Ignore the pain for now. Feel it later.  
  
He frowned and took another deep breath. Then he yanked out the drip, pulled aside the curtain, and began to stride out.  
  
************  
  
"Okay, so now what do we do? That unpleasant woman was of _no _help, and now I think she's keeping an eye on us and wondering why we're still here."  
  
Buffy gave Anya a look. "I don't care what she thinks of us. We need to look through the hospital, specifically the emergency ward. I just hope that the guy hasn't got out yet. I took long enough at the high school."   
  
Anya shrugged. "Well, you couldn't really leave the mysteriously uncovered seal... uncovered."  
  
"Yeah. Look, maybe we could create some kind of distraction..."  
  
"Oh! I could pretend to have a seizure! Then all the nurses would have to come out..."  
  
"That's a fine idea, Monkeyboy, except for the fact that you're a terrible actor. Your attempts so far have been pitiful at best."  
  
"Anya, please."  
  
Andrew looked eager. "So I can try it?"  
  
Buffy glared at him. "No, you can't try it. She's right, you _are _a terrible actor. We'll have to think of something else."  
  
He looked slightly disappointed and then shrugged. "Well, can I go to the bathroom then? I forgot to go before we left."  
  
Anya raised an eyebrow. "Well, if he's going to the bathroom, I'm going down to the gift store. I won't be long."  
  
Buffy opened her mouth to protest, but both her companions were already heading off.  
  
*************  
  
Dust sat in a locked toilet stall and quietly panicked. Dammit, could things _possibly _get any worse? Now Buffy was here, and if she caught him she was _so _ going to want explanations that he just couldn't provide. They were supposed to be trying not to interfere with history, and so far they'd done nothing but! God, they sucked. This whole situation sucked.   
  
He took a deep breath. Okay, that was enough. Sitting here and moping wasn't achieving anything. He had to go and speak to his Andrew; they could figure something out together. He'd _sneak _into the emergency ward if they weren't going to let him in. He'd have to be sneaky anyway, with Buffy here.  
  
Decision made, he opened the cubicle door and walked straight into the younger version of Andrew.  
  
"Crap!"   
  
*************  
  
Andrew gaped at the man who'd just walked out of a bathroom stall and was currently looking extremely panicked. Hey, wait a second...  
  
"It's you! Hey, we've been looking for you. Buffy wants to talk to you 'cause... Hey!"  
  
The man turned and ran out the bathroom door.  
  
*************  
  
Buffy stood outside the men's room, annoyed. Honestly, Andrew was the most irritating... Woah! She jumped back as a man burst through the door and started up the corridor towards the water cooler.   
  
Two seconds later Andrew followed, pointing excitedly. "That's him! That's him!"  
  
_What_?! Oh, for the love of god. She ran down the corridor after the man.  
  
**************  
  
Dust ran like hell for all of two seconds before an arm with all the strength of a Slayer behind it grabbed him and he jerked to a stop.   
  
Sighing in resignation, Dust turned to face a very annoyed looking Buffy.  
  
"Okay, and what was that about?"  
  
He managed a weak smile. "What was what about?"  
  
Young Andrew hurried up behind them. "Hey, keep it down! A few people in the waiting room are looking curious!" His expression turned to accusation. "And why were you running away anyway?"  
  
"That's what I just asked him!"  
  
Dust stared at them miserably. "Look, I know you want answers. I know you want to know what's going on. But I can't _tell_ you what's going on. The less you know the better, in fact."  
  
Buffy glared at him. "So you were running away because you don't want to answer any of our questions."  
  
"Uh, yeah."  
  
"For god's sake! I am so _sick _of mysterious types who provide a sliver of information and then claim they can't help any more. You wouldn't believe how many I've dealt with!"  
  
Dust winced. "Umm, sorry?"  
  
"Why? Why can't you tell us what's going on? I've got a nutso demon guy who used to be Andrew's brother bullying his way through Sunnydale, a bunch of people who are irritated at being shut in the house again, and a best friend who's only just beginning to get feeling back to his legs! Why can't you give me some answers?!"  
  
He grimaced. "Uhh... I can't tell you that either?"  
  
The look she gave him could have drilled holes in steel doors. He really didn't want to be here.  
  
******************  
  
"Sir! Where are you going?!"   
  
Andrew determinedly ignored the nurse's cry and kept walking towards the corridor until she walked around in front of him and blocked the way.  
  
He sighed and tried to keep from swaying. "I'm leaving. Okay?"  
  
She stared at him incredulously. "Sir, you came in here only a few hours ago needing stitches and a blood transfusion. You are certainly not well enough to be walking out of this hospital. And what have you done to your drip?" She turned to one of the interns. "Harry, can you come over here?"  
  
He took advantage of the distraction and managed to make it to the corridor before he was stopped again, this time by Harry as well.  
  
Harry grabbed him by the shoulders and made an effort to direct him back to the bed. "Come on sir, you need to be lying down."  
  
Andrew resisted, trying to twist himself out of the grasp. "I feel fine! And I have very, very important things I need to be doing!"  
  
The nurse looked irritated. "Sir, you are not well enough to be leaving this hospital."  
  
"I'm telling you I am. Shouldn't I know best? Besides, I don't have insurance. Don't you want to get me out as soon as possible?"  
  
This time the nurse looked positively ropeable. "I am a nurse. I am concerned about my patients. I certainly don't 'want to get you out as soon as possible'. And I find the implication to be... Sir!"  
  
She jumped back in alarm as Andrew finally managed to twist out of Harry's grip and pushed past him towards the waiting room. He really needed to get out of here _now_.  
  
***********  
  
"Look, I'm sorry. I know you're probably pissed at me, but I really can't tell you anything!"  
  
Buffy frowned at him. "How about you come with me and we'll discuss that?"  
  
Dust looked at her incredulously. "What are you doing, threatening to kidnap me and force me to talk?"  
  
"Right about now? Sounds like a good option."  
  
He stared at her in dismay. Although, she was only holding him loosely now. He might be able to...  
  
Dust pulled himself out of Buffy's grip and hurried off before she could grab him again. Startled, she and Andrew rushed after him and caught up just as he entered the waiting room. People looked up curiously. That was good. At least she'd have trouble trying to manhandle him now.  
  
Buffy smiled uncomfortably at the people and then grabbed his arm again, looser now. She hissed at him determinedly. "Look, I'm not going to hurt you, though since you seem to know my friends, perhaps you already know that. But I seriously don't see why you refuse to give me any information. People's lives could depend on this! If you're one of the good guys, and you haven't given me reason to think that you're not, then I need your help."  
  
Dust gritted his teeth and hissed back. "Look, there's a _reason _I'm not..."  
  
He trailed off as there was a gasp of astonishment from the younger Andrew, who was staring at the other end of the waiting room in utter amazement.  
  
With a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach, Dust followed his gaze.  
  
"Oh my god!" The younger Andrew stared, eyes shining, at his older self. The older Andrew stood leaning on the doorway with a terrible look of resignation on his face. And the younger Andrew beamed.  
  
"I _knew _Tucker looked older! I've come back from the future to protect myself from being horribly killed, thereby changing history irrevocably and appallingly!"  
  
Buffy wrenched her gaze away from Future Andrew for long enough to flick an irritated glance at him. "Andrew for the love of god, this isn't the Terminator!" She turned to the older Andrew and then to Dust, who was wincing apologetically at his companion. "Okay, I think I'm going to assume you're together. Do either one of you want to tell me what's _really _going on?"  
  
There was an awkward silence, and then Dust gave an embarrassed cough. "Umm, well actually..."  
  
***************  
  
  



	11. Part Nine

Thanks and adoration to my beta readers, Fab, Erica Olson and Stephen Lord. I hope you enjoy this one, it's caused me no end of headaches and rewrites :-).   
  
**Disclaimer:**  
The Buffyverse belongs to Mutant Enemy as far as I'm aware. No money being made, no infringement intended.  
  
**Spoilers** for Season Seven (all of it now). It's set right after Episode 12 (Potential).  
  
  
**Change**  
  
**Part Nine**  
  
_"Oh to have that twisted innocence__  
__Not to see the trouble every day__  
__Or the traps and tortures that run our lives__  
__Or to hear the lies that people say"_  
  
Twisted Innocence - Skyhooks  
  
Buffy Summers was having a hard day. It was bad enough that she was in the middle of a war with the evilest of evil beings, bad enough that there were half a dozen frightened potential slayers and a very annoying hostage using her home as a boarding facility. Now she was having to deal with a rogue demon who was apparently _related_ to the annoying hostage (and who, of course, wanted to kill him); and trying to find some information about the whole thing had, rather than leading to a nice, non-convoluted explanation, led to this.  
  
"What do you mean, that's about it?"  
  
The smallish brown haired guy who had been trying to get away from her a few seconds ago now stood awkwardly at her side, looking vaguely apologetic.   
  
"Umm... what he said? That's about it."  
  
Buffy stared at Andrew, who seemed ludicrously happy by this turn of events. Then she stared at the other, older Andrew who was leaning against the doorway looking distinctly ill.   
  
She turned back to the small guy. "You're from the future."  
  
"Well, yes."  
  
"And you've come here to save Andrew's life."  
  
"That's right."  
  
"To stop horrible things happening to the time zone."  
  
"That was kind of the theory." He looked worried. "I think we may have screwed things up a little."  
  
There was an annoyed cough from one of the hospital's nurses, and Buffy pulled herself together. Okay, this was not the place to have a conversation like this. For one thing, they had a large, curious audience of both staff and public. For another... well, talking like a lunatic was never a good option when the psych ward was so close. They needed out. Quickly. Where the hell was Anya?  
  
The nurse apparently determined that annoyed coughing wasn't going to work in these circumstances. "Excuse me, but this man is very ill, and he's going back to the emergency ward."  
  
The older Andrew straightened up at this. "I'm not going back to the emergency ward!"  
  
"Sir, I don't know what this is about or who these people are, but I can't let you just leave in the condition you're in."  
  
Dust hovered next to Buffy worriedly. "Andrew maybe you should do what she says. Just for a few hours? I mean, the damage is pretty much done anyway."  
  
"There you go; your companion's being very sensible."  
  
Buffy frowned. "Wait a second; we need to have a talk!"  
  
"Ma'am, this is not the time for this nonsense!"  
  
"It's not nonsense, it's..."  
  
"Andrew, I really think maybe..."  
  
"This is so cool! I'm like a lone hero, travelling the landscape with my loyal companion, never giving in, even when the odds are..."  
  
"Nurse." Elder Andrew abruptly turned on his heel and addressed the woman standing next to him.   
  
She blinked. "Yes?"  
  
His face was determined. "Do you have any legal way of keeping me here?"  
  
She hesitated, not liking where this conversation was going. "Not... not at hand. Of course, if I believe that you're not in your right mind I can bring in a psychiatrist to assess your mental capabilities..."  
  
Elder Andrew nodded. "Fair enough. I'll make sure I'm gone before he arrives then." He turned and started to walk out the front door.  
  
Buffy grabbed him before he could quite make it. "Wait a second. Where do you think you're going?"  
  
He gazed at her, unperturbed. "You said we needed to have a talk, right?"  
  
Buffy blinked. "Well, yes..."  
  
"Right. I'll be waiting out by your car then. See you in a minute." He shrugged her off and walked out.  
  
She was still standing in astonishment when Dust gave her a nervous grin and hurriedly followed him.   
  
***********  
  
"Andrew, wait!"  
  
Andrew stopped and waited for Dust to reach him, which was a good thing because his legs chose that moment to give out.   
  
Dust swore, dived forward, and steadied him. "You idiot!"  
  
Andrew winced and took a deep breath. Then started to walk again; slower and more carefully this time. "Thanks so much."   
  
His companion scowled. "What am I supposed to say? That it was a great idea for you to risk your life in such a colossally _stupid_ way and then walk out of the hospital against the better judgement of pretty much everyone there?"  
  
"I had to..."  
  
"You so did not! There must have been something, _anything_ else you could do! Jesus, Andrew, you slit your own wrist! That's just... I can't believe you did that!"  
  
"I did it because I _had_ to. It was a split second decision, I didn't have _time_ to think of anything else!"  
  
"So you immediately went for the solution that involved the _most_ risk to yourself. And this isn't the first time! Do you think I'd be this angry if this was the first time?"  
  
"Dust _please_. Just drop it."  
  
"_Drop_ it?"  
  
"Dust!" Andrew stopped abruptly and turned to face his angry partner. "This. Is not. The time! Get mad at me later. Scream at me if you want! But Buffy and _me_ are in there, and they're going to be out here any second and we need to figure out what to do!"  
  
Dust stared at him and then bit his lip. "Okay. Later. I won't forget."  
  
"I don't expect you will." They arrived at Buffy's car. Andrew lowered himself to the ground and sat leaning against one of the wheels while Dust squatted down in front of him, rummaging in Andrew's bag for a shirt to replace the hospital one. They'd probably be wanting that back.   
  
"Right. Fine. So what _do_ we do?"  
  
Andrew accepted a shirt from Dust and pulled it on, wincing. "Well, we'd better tell them as little as possible."  
  
"You think it'll matter? I mean, you don't remember this ever happening, do you? God knows you would have told me if you did. So something's obviously very screwed up already."  
  
Properly clothed now, he closed his eyes and leaned back wearily. "It can't _hurt_. I don't know. Maybe it won't matter, but we may as well stick to it for now."  
  
Dust stood up and paced. "You're probably right. I think the big question is, though, can we enlist them to help deal with Tucker? Having Buffy and Willow and Spike on our side will make it a whole lot easier."  
  
"And _we've_ certainly done a horrible job."  
  
"We're not dead yet. That means we've done a reasonable job, at least."  
  
"Buffy would make this a hell of a lot easier. I think we really _need_ her help."  
  
"So, tell her the absolute bare basics and ask for her help?"  
  
"I guess so. One other problem though: What if she wants to take us back to the house?"  
  
Dust frowned. "I don't know. It'll be safer there now that Tucker knows we're here."  
  
"But it's filled with people we know."  
  
"Right. I don't know. I guess we could..." He frowned deeper. "It might not be wise, but I have a horrible feeling we'll need the safety that being locked up in the Summers' will give us, Andrew. And it's not like the fact that you know you're here hasn't thoroughly twisted the timeline into knots already. Just being _seen_ there will do a lot less damage than actually telling them what's going to happen, right?"  
  
"So we just take it as it comes. Great."   
  
"And if we do end up there, we don't have to tell everyone we're time travellers. You could be a relative of Andrew's that Buffy is helping."  
  
Andrew raised an eyebrow. "Why would she be helping the relative of her hostage?"  
  
"She's a very philanthropic person?"  
  
He looked sceptical. "Uh-huh."  
  
Dust sighed and looked at him. "So how are you? Honestly. Are you going to be in any state to do anything physical any time soon?"  
  
Andrew took a deep breath and closed his eyes again, trying to judge how sore he really was.  
  
"Well?"  
  
He opened his eyes. "Right now I feel like crap, but I think I'll be a lot better if I get a good night's sleep. My body just needs time to heal."  
  
"So we might have to go back to the Summers' after all."  
  
Andrew made a face. "Let's just avoid it if we can, okay?"  
  
Dust looked at him thoughtfully. "You're that worried about the others seeing us?"  
  
Andrew gave a short, humourless bark of laughter. "It's not the others that I'm worried about."  
  
Dust blinked in confusion. "What..."  
  
"See! I told you! I'm here with my companion to save the world from collapsing into a paradox that will rend apart all time and space!"  
  
They both looked up to see the younger Andrew leading the way towards the car while babbling excitedly. Following him were Buffy, who was looking thoroughly ticked off, and...  
  
Andrew's eyes widened. "Anya!"  
  
Anya raised an eyebrow. "Yes, that is my name. And you're apparently Andrew from the future, though we still have to prove that. You don't look like you've changed a whole lot, though you might have gotten slightly more muscly."  
  
He smiled despite himself. "Maybe just slightly. Hello Anya."  
  
Buffy crossed her arms. "Okay," she said. "I've phoned Xander and he's going to let us use his place to have our little talk, seeing as Anya apparently still has a key. Willow will be joining us with a handy truth spell."  
  
Dust looked worried. "It's not one that's going to make us talk, is it? I don't mind you knowing what I'm saying is true, but there's some stuff that we _shouldn't_ say."  
  
Buffy glanced at him. "We'll try and take that into account. Alright?"  
  
"I guess. How many other people have you told about us?"  
  
Buffy's gaze drifted unconsciously to the older Andrew. "Only those close to me for now. I want more information." She shook her head and then fished around for her car key. "And this time I want the truth."  
  
"Technically I didn't _not_ tell you the truth before. I just didn't tell you much at all."   
  
She glared. "I hate people who use technicalities. You'd better be willing to at least give some explanations now, or I _will_ get a spell that forces you to talk."  
  
Dust sighed and went to help his Andrew up. "Right."  
  
The younger Andrew stood a little off to the side. His eyes were still gleaming. "This is so cool."   
  
Anya snorted. "Sure, dweeb-boy. Cool."  
  
He turned to her in protest. "It is! Wouldn't you find it cool if a version of _you_ from the future came back? I can't wait to talk to him properly."  
  
Anya shrugged. "He doesn't really look too happy about the opportunity... Oh for heaven's sake!"  
  
"Huh?"  
  
Anya ignored him and walked up to his future self. "You keep looking at me as if you're semi-close to me!"  
  
The older Andrew winced and steadied himself on the car. "Yes?"  
  
She frowned. "It's just very disconcerting. Since I barely know you now, I'm guessing this has something to do with some kind of close moment we share in the future."  
  
He nodded.  
  
"Oh. Well, fair enough then." She hesitated, then looked alarmed as a thought crossed her mind. "God, we didn't have sex did we?"  
  
There was an awkward pause. Buffy stopped in the middle of opening the car door to look at Anya with practised disbelief.  
  
The Elder Andrew barely twitched. "I think I can safely say no to that."  
  
Anya looked relieved. "Well, thank goodness for that." Suddenly realising that this might be considered harsh, she added. "Not that I don't find you attractive in a vaguely geeky way, I just always assumed you were gay."  
  
"Anya!" Buffy looked pained. Dust looked dumbstruck. The younger Andrew blushed beet red.  
  
Anya rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on, it's not like you haven't thought it too."  
  
Buffy gritted her teeth. "That's not the point!"  
  
"Why don't you ask this guy? He's probably sleeping with him."  
  
"What? I'm not sleeping with him!"  
  
"Well, have you thought about it? He does look a bit grumpy and sex can be very..."  
  
"Anya!"  
  
"But..."   
  
As they degenerated into arguing and young Andrew stood embarrassed and trying not to look at anyone, Dust turned to his Andrew with a certain amount of awe. "She's exactly how you always said she was."  
  
Andrew looked amused. "You didn't believe me?"  
  
"I didn't think someone _could _be exactly how you always said she was."  
  
He smiled wistfully. "That's Anya. There's no-one quite like her."  
  
They watched the argument awkwardly. Dust bit his lip. "Look," he said quietly, "Maybe we could..."  
  
Andrew's look was pained. "No."  
  
"But maybe there's _something _we can..."  
  
Andrew turned and hissed at him between clenched teeth. "Dust, _please_ . Just don't think about it. Because if you think about it, I'll think about it and I... Dust, I don't think it's a good idea. Think of the damage we've already potentially done."  
  
Dust stared at him and then sadly nodded. "Right," he said. "Right."  
  
***********  
  
Willow gathered together spell ingredients, still shaking her head from the recent phone call. "This is so bizarre. I mean, _Andrew_?"  
  
Xander nodded. "Well, it might not be. I mean, we _have_ had experiences with demons pretending to be future people before."  
  
Willow shot him a sympathetic look, well aware of how the demon Xander mentioned had contributed to his failed marriage attempt. "That's true. But there doesn't really seem to be much motivation for something like that now. And let's face it, if you were a demon trying to get our trust, would you really pick Andrew to pretend to be?"  
  
"Point. Though he's not exactly my first guess for a time traveller either."  
  
Willow shook her head. "I know, I know. The whole time travel thing is bad enough, but _Andrew_..."  
  
"Okay, now you're just repeating yourself. Not to say that I didn't do the same thing on the phone ten minutes ago..."  
  
Willow grabbed a candle and pulled herself up. "I just kind of find it hard to believe that behind all the weirdness that's been happening over the last day or two is..."  
  
"More weirdness?"  
  
"Pretty much, yeah. Though I really shouldn't be surprised at this point, should I?"   
  
"Willow, this time travel plot has been the basis of about fifty different action flicks and if it all turns out to be legit, _Andrew's_* the main character. I think you're entitled to be surprised. Even astounded."  
  
"Well, that makes me feel a little better." She smiled. "Anyway, I'm off. I'll just go tell Spike before I go."  
  
"Hang on. Buffy said she only wants the whole 'inner circle' to know about this for the moment. And sorry if I'm pointing out something stupid here, but since when did Spike become inner circle?"  
  
Willow frowned at him. "Xander, do you really think she _didn't_ mean him?"  
  
He scowled at her.   
  
"Well?"  
  
"Fine, whatever. Tell the murderous vampire all our secrets."  
  
"Xander..."  
  
He threw her a disgusted look. "I'll be in the kitchen. You do whatever feels right."  
  
Willow watched him go, sighed, and then headed to the basement.  
  
*************  
  
Dust sat in the back seat of the car sandwiched uncomfortably between two versions of Andrew. _His_ Andrew had apparently succumbed to sleep and sat slumped against the window with his eyes closed. In contrast the younger Andrew looked about as far from sleep as it was possible to get. And he just wouldn't stop _talking_...  
  
"So you and me just kind of travel around righting wrongs?"  
  
Dust frowned helplessly. "I really don't think I should say anything about that."  
  
Young Andrew's eyes shined. "That's because it might mess with the space-time continuum, right?"  
  
"Uhh... yes. That's right."  
  
"What about the fact that you're talking to us now? Will that affect things?"  
  
He shrugged. "I don't know."  
  
"You don't know? Didn't they brief you before they sent you back?"  
  
"Before _who_ sent us back?"  
  
"No one sent you back? Wow, how did you do it then?"  
  
"Well we... Look, I'll tell everyone together if I'm going to explain, okay?"  
  
"Fair enough then. So you're like my loyal companion?"  
  
Dust blinked incredulously at him. "Well I... I guess _sort_ of."  
  
"That's so cool! You do right _some_ wrongs though, don't you?"  
  
"We've... righted a few," he conceded.  
  
"I thought so! I mean, that's definitely something I can see myself doing in the future. Earning my redemption by saving those in need. Helping the hopeless!"  
  
Dust stared at him. "That's... a nice idea."  
  
"Totally! So the First Evil gets defeated and all?"  
  
Dust frowned. "I don't think it's a good idea to count on that. It might be that we're only from a _possible_ future, okay?"  
  
Andrew nodded enthusiastically. "Like 'Days of Future Past" in the X-Men."  
  
"Err... yeah. Like that."  
  
"I can see that. So, has future me told you much about what's going on at the moment?"  
  
"You've told me bits. Everyone's holed up at the Summers' at the moment, right?"  
  
"Right. We're preparing for the inevitable battle. And they're training the potential Slayers for the day when one of them will take up the mantle of the one and only chosen one."  
  
He tried to nod sincerely. "One and only chosen one. Right."  
  
"Uhuh. So Tucker's from the future too?"  
  
Dust decided it was fairly safe to admit that. "Yes. Yes he is."  
  
"And he realised that he couldn't defeat me in your time, so he came back to when I was weaker and more defenceless."  
  
Dust made a face. "Well, it wasn't so much that he _couldn't_ defeat you. More that he got sick of trying and thought this would be easier."  
  
"But still, that means I'm a lot more powerful, right?"  
  
Dust frowned at him. "I don't really think we should be talking about this."  
  
Andrew didn't seem fazed. "Right, right." He looked over at the apparently sleeping form of his older self. "So, do you think it would be okay if I touched him, or would there be some kind of catastrophic consequence?"  
  
Dust found himself smiling despite himself. "The Blinovitch Limitation effect?"  
  
Andrew looked delighted. "You watch Doctor Who too?"  
  
"Well... a little bit."  
  
"That's so cool! So do you think it'd be like that?"  
  
"I don't know." Dust knitted his brow. He hadn't actually thought about this. "Maybe it's best not to try. Just in case."  
  
"Well, that's probably a good idea then. You don't really want that kind of discharge of energy. Unless you've got something to contain it. Maybe Willow could do some kind of spell and we could try it under experimental circumstances. Or maybe..."  
  
"Oh, for heaven's sake." Apparently his Andrew hadn't been as asleep as he looked, because he uncurled himself from the window and in one swift move reached over Dust and poked his younger self. Happily, the universe completely failed to explode.   
  
Dust gasped and stared at his companion in fury. "What are you doing? You didn't know that was safe!"  
  
His Andrew's expression was indecipherable. "Couldn't be the Blinovitch Limitation effect," he said simply. "You're supposed to feel a tingling in your hands beforehand."  
  
And as Dust stared at him in astonishment, he closed his eyes and leaned back against the window.  
  
"He's right, you know." The younger Andrew nodded seriously and settled back in his seat.  
  
Dust stared. It suddenly occurred to him that he might well be sitting between two madmen.  
  
***************  
  
Tucker stalked through one of Sunnydale's finer cemeteries and fumed. Darkness had arrived, and fury had made him hungry. Vampires wouldn't help much in the extra powers department, but they gave a good hunt, and that was what he wanted right now. Building up his power could wait. Finding out about the seal could wait. Hell, right now the whole damn world could wait. He needed to _kill_. Carefully, silently, he pulled himself into the shadows of a large and intricately carved tombstone.   
  
He waited.  
  
**************  
  
"Umm.... So, Tucker managed stay one step ahead of us for ages, basically. And...other people tried to get him too, but he just kept slipping away."  
  
Buffy frowned at Dust, who sat nervously on the edge of one of Xander's chairs, trying to avoid rubbing at the symbols Willow had drawn in mud on his palms. Willow herself sat cross-legged on the floor holding the candle, which was currently burning an interesting shade of purple. Buffy and Anya were seated behind her on the sofa, while the younger Andrew wandered aimlessly around the room as they talked. Dust's Andrew had dropped himself silently in a recliner as soon as they arrived and was staring fixedly at his younger self's wanderings. He looked worryingly tired and ill.  
  
"Other people?" Buffy asked.  
  
"Other people. I really don't know whether I should mention..."  
  
She sighed. "Okay, fine. And then?"  
  
"Well, me and Andrew and... another person finally got a fix on his location and we went after him again. Only the...other person got injured and we went after him ourselves. Unfortunately he'd managed to find and eat an Hourwhether and..."  
  
"An Hourwhether?"  
  
"Uh, yeah. It's a type of demon that..." He glanced anxiously at his companion. "Andrew could probably tell you better..."  
  
Andrew's eyes didn't leave his younger self. "You're doing fine."  
  
Dust frowned at him. "...right. It's a demon that can travel through time and space. So basically, as soon as he'd eaten it Tucker just disappeared back here."  
  
"And you followed how?"  
  
"Well... Andrew?" He looked hopefully at the recliner, but Andrew seemed disinclined to participate. Dust turned back, troubled. "Well, the Hourwhether was actually on this plane because it had given out a mating call and was waiting for another Hourwhether to arrive so they could... well, mate. So the mate turned up and with... a little help we managed to cobble together a spell that meant we could hitch a ride on it back here. Umm. Andrew, are you sure you don't want to..."  
  
"No."  
  
"...tell the story. Right. Okay." Dust gave Buffy a weak smile. "So we came back and tried to find Tucker before he could do anything. Unfortunately, it wasn't that easy. He got to your Andrew before we could. We used... a kind of transference spell to find out where you were and found _him_ there as well."  
  
"And so you ran to distract him and met up with Xander and present Andrew, while your Andrew cooked something up." Buffy looked thoughtful.  
  
"Right."  
  
Willow nodded at Buffy. "The story checks out according to the spell. No spiky red flames at all."  
  
"No chance they could have skewered the results?"  
  
"Not much. This is actually one of the more powerful truth spells out there."  
  
Buffy sighed. "Okay then. Time travel. Yippee. Don't suppose this means that we're guaranteed to survive against the First? "  
  
Willow frowned. "I really wouldn't count on it. Temporal research is a bit foggy on the 'possible future versus definite future' theory when it comes to time travel. They could come from one of squillions of potential futures. Or not. No one really knows."  
  
"Somehow I didn't think it'd be that easy. Pity."  
  
Anya looked interested. "So Andrew summoned that Demoshaemon? That was a pretty good job there."  
  
Buffy turned to the older Andrew. "You _were_ the one who summoned that thing, right?"  
  
Older Andrew dragged his eyes off of himself and blinked at her. He raised an eyebrow and lifted his bandaged arm. "Yes."  
  
She frowned. "Right." Buffy turned back to Dust, who was studying his suddenly monosyllabic companion with deep concern. "Okay, so you say you can track him because Andrew gets some kind of flash of his location whenever he eats a demon."  
  
"That's right."  
  
"In that case, I suggest you tell me pronto if you see anything. If I can get there soon enough maybe I can finally deal with this psycho before he murders someone else."  
  
Younger Andrew looked anxious. "You're not going to kill him?"  
  
"Not if I don't have to. I'll disable him and then we can figure out a way to send you all back to where you belong."  
  
Dust looked a little more optimistic at this. "That shouldn't be a problem. An Hourwhether has to recharge for about a week after a jump, so the one we used will still be in the area. We can do the same ritual we did to get here."  
  
Anya looked interested. "Does that mean that Tucker won't be able to jump into another time for a week too?"  
  
"Good point, actually." Dust turned to the recliner again. "Andrew, Tucker won't be able to..."  
  
"That's right."  
  
"...okay." He glanced at Buffy, Anya and Willow apologetically. "Guess not."  
  
"Right." Buffy stood up. "That does, however, mean that you two are going to be here for at least a week."  
  
"Umm. Yes."  
  
"You're going to need protection."  
  
"We can look after ourselves, " Dust protested.  
  
"With him in that state?"  
  
"Okay, not right at the _moment_."  
  
"I can't split up my group. I need people at the house to look after the potentials. If I'm going to offer you any protection it'll _have_ to be there."  
  
Dust looked pained. "I was afraid you were going to say that. Look, we'd really like to avoid it if possible because we just don't know the damage it might do. If we _have_ to go there, though, do you think you could not mention the whole time travelling thing? At least not to the potentials? The less people the better, in fact."  
  
Buffy nodded. "It might be better if we could do that. Though Andrew does look like... well, Andrew."  
  
Young Andrew perked up. "We could say he's a really close cousin of mine that you nicely decided to help."  
  
She sighed. "Not exactly that convincing, but something like that should do."  
  
There was a pensive silence as several people collected their thoughts and Willow finished off the truth spell. The younger Andrew took this chance to wander over to his older self.  
  
"Hi."  
  
Older Andrew looked at him. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking. "Hi."  
  
Young Andrew rolled awkwardly on his heels. "So..." he said.  
  
A raised eyebrow.  
  
"So what's the future like? I mean, just in general terms. Not specifically or anything."  
  
The older Andrew looked at him blankly for a few seconds. Then he said, "Cities have taken over the landscape, there are hover cars everywhere, and people have to have a barcode tattooed onto their neck at birth."  
  
Younger Andrew's eyes widened in surprise. "Really?!"  
  
Older Andrew's face twisted into an expression that was dangerously close to disgust. "No," he said. "Not really."  
  
And then he stood shakily up and walked out of the room while everyone stared.  
  
***********   
  
Dust found him a few seconds later in the bathroom, looking into the mirror.   
  
He glared at his companion. "What the hell was that about?"   
  
Andrew stared sulkily back at his mirror image. "Nothing."  
  
"Nothing. Right. I'm sorry, are you feeling so sick that you can only talk in single words? If so, fine, go sleep somewhere. But I have a feeling that this has nothing to do with how unwell you're feeling."  
  
Andrew stared at himself. Tired, pale, ill. In no state to deal with all of this. He turned around to Dust. "I just... I really don't want to deal with him."  
  
Dust shook his head. "That's all you're worried about. Andrew, you're not _that_ bad. A little hyper maybe, but you're young. I don't know what you're..."  
  
"Didn't you _see_ that? He _believed_ me. He'll believe _anything_..."  
  
"So you were a little naïve..."  
  
"I was a little _stupid_."  
  
"Geez, Andrew. There's no need to be so harsh! I don't know what..."  
  
"I don't believe you're sticking up for him. Do you know what he's done?"  
  
Dust crinkled his forehead. "Sticking up...? Andrew, he's _you_. I think you really do need some rest. You're not making much sense."  
  
Andrew slammed his good hand against the sink and stared uselessly at the bruise that began to form. "You're right. I need rest, and I'm ill, and there's too much happening and I just don't want to be here!"  
  
Dust gently grabbed him by the shoulders. "Okay, I think we need to find you a place to lie down. You're... Andrew?"  
  
Dust started back as Andrew grabbed the edge of the sink and lifted his bandaged hand to his head. His eyes squeezed shut for a few seconds and then he looked up with a certain amount of relief.  
  
Dust suddenly felt a little better. "Tucker?" He asked.  
  
And Andrew nodded. "Tucker. I know where he is."  
  
************  
  
  



	12. Part Ten

Err, yes. Umm. I have no good excuse for the lateness of this. I just kinda suck. Sorry :-(. 

This chapter is totally different to what I had planned it to be. I realised that I was getting nowhere with what I had, and therefore, I changed it. I hope it's still likeable, however :-).

Thanks to Niannah, Erica Olson and Wrathchild for betaing.

And now (after a slight delay of 50,164 years):

**Change**

**Part Ten**

_"You have found yourself__  
__Trapped in this incomprehensible maze"_  
Where's Your Head At? - Basement Jaxx

"Okay, so what do we do now?"

Andrew winced and pulled himself away from the sink. "What do we do...?"

Dust bit his lip and hissed at him softly so that the people in the next room couldn't hear. "We have to tell Buffy, right? And she's probably going to want to go after him without us."

"That's bad?"

He frowned at his companion. "Not the 'excluding you from combat' thing. But she might send us back to the house. She's already said that it's safer for us there. We have to make the choice right now. Do we want to go there or not? Is it going to do any more harm than we've already done for us to be at the Summers'?"

Andrew closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, he said simply: "I think we should leave the decision up to Buffy."

"What?"

"I said we should leave it up to Buffy."

"Why? I know she's better at beating things up than we are, but since when are we handing over control of the whole situation to her?"

"We haven't exactly been doing that well on our own..."

"Oh come on! Yes, we screwed up, but we did the best we could under the circumstances, Andrew! Hell, you did _more _than you should have, which is why you've got a seven inch bandage on your arm..."

"Dust! _Later_..."

Dust rolled his eyes. "Right. Later. So...?"

"I'm not just saying this because we haven't done that well, Dust."

"No? Then why _are _you saying it?"

* * *

Tucker grinned to himself and scratched his wrist. The fluid glands that he'd just grown were still a little itchy, but they worked. He stared down at the desiccated Ananasi demon at his feet, and then up at the sticky web that coated the crypt. It had taken a little getting used to, granted. But this was a new demon and he had a new ability already. 

At this rate he might actually be able to make himself powerful enough to gut little Buffy Summers, though it may take some time. In any case, he'd better get the hell away from this location. Didn't want his stupid brother sending the goons after him just yet.

Now he remembered why he really liked Sunnydale. It was impressively demonic.

* * *

"...and then there was Glory, who she defeated by _killing _herself. And she's also saved the world from the Master, the Judge, and several other individuals starting with "The". Plus there was that thing in Mexico..." 

Dust frowned and shook his head. "Andrew, okay! You've just given me a categorical list of all the times that Buffy has saved the world. Well done. Can you now tell me what the point is now?"

"The point is that this is a very bad situation, and Buffy knows how to deal with very bad situations. It's what she's best at. I'm not suggesting that we leave things in the hands of someone who doesn't know what she's doing, and I think that at the moment we're both too tired and just completely ticked off about Tucker to make a clear decision. So we should leave it to someone who's at her _best _in apocalyptic situations. Okay?"

Dust looked seriously at Andrew for a few seconds and then sighed. "I guess that is at least logical."

His companion offered a faint smile. "I managed logic? Wow. Half the time I can't even do that when I'm well."

"And I suppose I'm not exactly at my 'thinking clearest' point at the moment either."

"Exactly."

Dust gave him a withering glance. "Thanks so much. Okay fine. We'll leave it to Buffy. Now we'd better get out there and tell her what's going on before she thinks we've both escaped through the bathroom window or something."

Andrew's nodded. "Probably a good idea. And Dust, it's okay, honest. I'm sure she'll make the right decision."

* * *

"I'm not sure I made the right decision." 

Spike cocked his head at her as he nimbly jumped a small headstone. "Yeah?"

"I mean, what if they're right with what they said before? What if by taking him back to the house we've completely screwed up time?"

"I'd say it's a bit too late to be worrying about that. 'Sides, you didn't tell the maybe-Slayers who he was."

"Oh yeah, and the relative story was so smooth." Buffy frowned, stopped, and scanned the graveyard. No sign of Tucker yet, but they weren't quite at the crypt Andrew had described. Older Andrew, that was. Younger Andrew didn't seem to have the same weird flashy blood-related foreshadowing powers, a piece of information that could be vital or could just be due to time travel. Yet another thing that she didn't know about this whole deal. She turned back to Spike. "I know; you're right. I've got to stop second-guessing myself."

"Nothing particularly wrong with second guessing yourself if you're really sure you might be wrong. But right now? You've gotta work on the information you have."

"Which is small and pathetic. Damn." She stopped and nodded her head. "Okay, there's the crypt. How much chance do you think there is that he's still there?"

"Small to none, I reckon. Could still be around the area though."

"Or he might be way gone."

"So we track. You're the Slayer"

"And you're the one with the super senses." She walked up to the crypt door and looked at him questioningly. "You picking anything up?"

Spike frowned and listened. "No. And no familiar scents either. Must have eaten something that covers his up. Or your bloke's gone mad and he was never here."

"Or 'my bloke' isn't Andrew after all and he's screwing with Willow's magic." Buffy pulled back, centred herself, and kicked the door down. The stone made a satisfying crack as slammed to the floor, ploughing through layers of sinister looking spider webs as it did.

"You think he's not Andrew?" They edged in carefully and searched the room. Twisted strands of webbing were everywhere, but there was no sign of life.

Buffy looked thoughtful. "The door was wedged shut. He must have gotten out through a sewer exit." She wrinkled her nose and pushed aside the webbing with a stake as she moved to the back of the room. "And I don't know. I know I'm having a hard time believing that's Andrew."

Spike snorted. "Come on now. You're telling me you weren't a different person ten years ago?"

"Not that different!"

He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Okay, perhaps a _bit _different, but I hadn't found out what I was going to be doing with the rest of my life at that point."

"You think the kid who spends all day cooking us food and answering the phone knows what he's going to do with the rest of his life?"

"Whatever the person in charge wants him to?"

Spike gave her a wry grin. "So maybe he hasn't changed that much at all. It's just that he's become the person in charge of himself. Quite inspiring, that."

"You really do think it's him, don't you?"

Spike's expression was veiled. "Yeah well," he said. "I've seen weirder transformations."

* * *

Kennedy sat perched on the bench top, shaking her head. "But Andrew's cousin? We're looking after Andrew's relatives now? As if the house isn't full enough..." 

Xander gave her a look. "He needs protection, Kennedy. If Buffy was the type of person to let people in danger fend for themselves I think you'd all be in trouble. Right?"

Kennedy made a face.

"_Right_?"

"Okay, okay."

Xander turned to the rest of the potentials. "That goes for the rest of you. I know you're frustrated at being stuck inside again, and I know having two more people isn't going to be great for sleeping arrangements. But the people out there are tired and injured, and they need our help. The least you guys can do is have a bit of empathy about the situation and not sit in here gossiping about poor Dust and Anthony."

There was general amount of contrite nodding from the potentials and they dispersed.

Xander added after them, "And keep out of the basement! Let him get some sleep, okay?"

Xander sighed. He felt like a high school teacher. Worse, he felt like an _adult_; telling off a bunch of girls for gossiping. When the heck had that happened? He turned around, and bumped straight into Dawn.

"Well, you totally told them."

"Thanks Dawn, 'ppreciate the kudos. Now, didn't you have some homework to do?"

"I'll get to it. But first I wanna know who he really is."

Xander winced. Damn. "You know, I'm pretty certain we already told everyone..."

"You told the potentials a load of crap! I'm not an idiot, you know. Half the house is trying to keep some kind of secret, including Anya, who's just bad at it, and Andrew, who's even worse. Do I rate under Andrew now?"

"Dawn, it's not about that..."

"I'm not a kid anymore, Xander! I know how to keep a secret!"

Xander stared at her, torn.

"Well?"

"If I don't tell you, you're just going to do everything in your power to find out, aren't you?"

"Duh."

He sighed. "Okay, okay. Keep it down though, and _do not_ tell anyone else. Enough damage has been done already."

"Knowing the secret causes damage?"

"It just might. Now listen, you're probably not going to believe this but..."

* * *

The basement was surprisingly comfortable, all things considered. There was a bed, and a chair, and handcuffs bolted to the wall... 

Dust huddled in the chair and stared at the wall worriedly. He was fairly certain there was a logical reason for the last item, but his mind kept conjuring up stuff that was just plain nasty. Oh well, at least the bed seemed comfortable. Then again, Andrew had looked so exhausted it was quite possible he'd still be asleep had he been asked to sleep on a bed of titanium nails dipped in chilli sauce with a mongoose nibbling on his toes.

He really should be trying to get some sleep of his own. Buffy and Spike were out hunting Tucker, there was nothing that he could do at present. And he needed the sleep, almost as much as Andrew. He should rest. Really. Any second now.

He jumped when someone came down the stairs, and looked up to see a familiar face holding two steaming mugs.

"Dawn!" he said without thinking, and then inwardly winced. They hadn't told her, had they?

Dawn grinned at him. "I'm guessing you know future me, then." Off his look, she added, "It's okay. I forced Xander to tell me. He _is_ the weakest link."

Dust managed a smile in return. "Ah. Well, I doubt it matters much anyway. The timeline's probably already tied in knots."

Dawn nodded with the air of someone who'd learned to stop worrying about statements like that. "Could be. You want some hot chocolate? Xander said you were still awake last he looked, and I thought you might want something. It helps me sleep, anyway."

He straightened in the chair and accepted a mug gratefully. "Thanks. It has been kind of difficult to rest."

"Brain won't stop being anxious?"

"Pretty much. This whole trip has pretty much been one big disaster after another." He sipped. "Mmm, nice chocolate."

"Buffy says I put way too much sugar in it. Of course, I personally don't see how that's actually possible."

"Me neither. I like chocolate when it's really sweet. Not that horrible bitter stuff that's mostly cocoa."

Dawn made a face. "Oh yeah, I know the stuff. Totally gross. And it's also about ten times more expensive that the tasty stuff. I mean, what's with that?"

He smiled weakly. "I don't know. It's stupid, really."

"Completely."

Dawn looked thoughtful. "I'm not going to ask about future me, by the way. I mean, I'm curious and all, but I thought about it and really, I think I'd rather be surprised. So you don't have to worry about me begging for information or anything."

Dust blinked. "Oh. Thanks." He hesitated, and then added, "Everyone's been pretty good about that, really. I thought they'd be grilling me or something, but they've pretty much left it alone."

"Well, when you've been through as many dangerous situations as we have, you do learn that it's a bad idea to poke at those kinds of things."

"Uh. Point."

They sat in silence for a minute, sipping their drinks. Then Dawn nodded towards Andrew. "Did he really... y'know..." She made a cutting motion on her wrist.

Dust winced. "Yeah. Trust me. We're going to have a big talk about that when this is over."

"I just can't believe he'd do it. I mean, _our_ Andrew spent half an hour complaining about a paper cut the other day."

"He's changed a bit."

"Right."

"A lot, even. People change."

"I'm so not arguing. It must be pretty weird for you meeting up with our Andrew though. I mean, with all the... differences."

Dust chewed his lip. "It's interesting. I haven't really had time to digest it. He's certainly... different."

"Uh-huh."

"It's not like I'm disappointed or anything, though. Honest. I mean, a lot of people were a bit..."

"Annoying?"

"_Overenthusiastic_ when they were younger. It's not as though it's anything I shouldn't have already suspected. And he's not that bad. Enthusiasm's nice sometimes."

Dawn smirked. "Sometimes. I guess I don't think he's too bad most of the time. I think Buffy's a bit exasperated with him though."

"Well he is... enthusiastic."

"Boy howdy."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. I've been watching too much old TV."

* * *

"Still no luck?" Willow switched the phone to her another ear and bit her lip, worried. "That's not good." 

Buffy's voice came through slightly crackled. The magic aura around many of Sunnydale's graveyards sometimes did that. "Very much of the bad. The one good thing is that we have found evidence of where he's been in the shape of two shrivelled up demon corpses; a kind of weird spider one near the crypt where Andrew... big Andrew... I mean old Andrew... oh, you know what I mean..."

"Future Andrew."

"Where future Andrew said Tucker was, and a kind of reddish fuzzy thing. It was probably quite cute before it was, y'know, regurgitated by an insane freak. Oh, hang on..." There was a scaping sound in the background. "What? Oh, but... Ah, I see..." Buffy directed her attention back to the phone. "Make that three shrivelled up corpses. Spike just found another one. Kinda ugly; green with brown warts and blue lips."

"Okay, I'll see if I can look those up. Tucker's been productive."

"You have no idea how much this is ticking me off, Willow. I'm going to be up all night trying to find him. I don't know how I'm going to survive school tomorrow."

"Another sick day?"

"They're going to think I'm some kind of alcoholic who's too hung over to work half the time. Or that I'm just lazy." She lowered her voice slightly, not to disguise the conversation from Spike, who had far too precise hearing for that, but to indicate to him that he should take the hint and not listen in. "Willow, I was happy when I got this job. It's a _real_ job. It's not some sucky fast food joint, it's the kind of job that people who are going somewhere in their lives have."

"I know, Buffy. It's hard."

"I just... I just thought I'd finally found something that wouldn't have to be sacrificed because of my wonderful 'duty'."

"You don't have to sacrifice it, Buffy. You've only been away a few days so far. It's totally non-suspicious, honest."

"And if it keeps going on like this?"

"Well, look at it this way. If the first evil gets its way, it'll all be kind of moot, really."

Buffy managed an amused snort of laughter. "Thanks. That does make me feel better."

Willow smiled ruefully. "Well, you know me. Miss Optimism."

"Hey, sometimes I just need someone to give me a jolt of reality. Listen, I'll keep on with this for as long as we've got his trail. If we lose it I'm packing in for the night. I do need some sleep."

"Good luck."

"Thanks Willow."

* * *

Dust was wedged awkwardly into the corner of a very large white room. Part of him wondered why he didn't stretch out more, but every time he tried he couldn't quite manage it. Also, the room kept getting brighter, which was irritating because he could see the light even when his eyes were shut. Stupid room. Stupid light. Stupid person who was calling out his name. Oh, wait a second, what was tha... 

Dust gasped and jerked awake. Daylight filtered into the basement through a tiny window, where he was currently folded up in the chair. Andrew was standing over him looking remarkably young...

Wait a second. He blinked several times, made an attempt to pull himself together, and twisted over to see his Andrew still sleeping soundly on the nearby bed. He looked up at the younger Andrew with a tad more composure. "Oh. Hello."

Young Andrew smiled at him hopefully and said softly. "Hi! Sorry if I woke you up."

Dust carefully stretched out, cringing. "It's... okay. I don't think I really should have fallen asleep in this chair anyway. What time is it?"

Young Andrew hopped distractedly from foot to foot. "Ten a.m."

"Did they...?"

Young Andrew looked pained. "They didn't find him. They found lots of remains, but no Tucker. They looked all night, too. Came in at six. Umm. You should probably be really quiet. Buffy's taken the day off and she's asleep in her room. Spike's in Willow's room. Xander wasn't very happy about that, but they couldn't put him in here because he... I was here and they did still tie him up a bit."

Dust blinked, slightly confused. "They tie Spike up?"

"Oh, yeah. It's because of the brainwashing. Sometimes he goes all snarly on people who have _totally_ done nothing to deserve it, and he goes and pulls them through walls..."

Dust looked at him, slightly horrified. "He's brainwashed? He pulls people through _walls_? I thought we were supposed to be safe here?"

"Oh, it's okay. I mean, he hasn't done it for a while. I think he's managed to shake off the hideous influence of the First Evil in order to show his true spirit..."

Dust stared at him blankly. "I... Why were you here again?"

Young Andrew brightened. "I just thought you might want some breakfast or something."

Dust decided to delay the questions until later. After all, they were leaving it to Buffy, right? "Breakfast sounds good. You'd... better not wake yourself up. I think he needs all the sleep he can get."

"Right." The young Andrew looked uncomfortably at the bed. "He was a little... grouchy last night. Probably lack of sleep, right?"

Dust gritted his teeth. "Right. Probably. So, breakfast?"

* * *

Three quarters of an hour later, Dust was sorting through the fridge for something else to eat. He'd had a bowl of cereal and then got sidetracked by the heavenly promise of a bath with warm water and even better, bubble bath that smelt like someone had pureed a field of flowers. By the time he got out, Young Andrew and the potentials were intently watching a television program that they totally couldn't miss, but they told him to help himself if he was still hungry. 

Earth fridges were sources of endless fascination to Dust. Scathck's food had always been rather plain, and it amazed him that people could find so many ways to serve up a set of basic ingredients.

He sorted through the packages and condiments with a certain amount of awe. "Swiss cheese. Edam cheese. Blue cheese. White cheese. Cream cheese. Butter. Pickled olives." He reached for a jar at the back and looked at the label curiously. "Antipasto? What's that?"

"If you put it together with pasto, the universe explodes."

Dust turned and raised an eyebrow. "Was I supposed to understand that?"

His Andrew looked more amused than Dust thought the situation called for. "If you were a geek you'd get it."

"Well, I'm not exactly one of the cool guys." He replaced the jar and closed the fridge. "Feeling better?"

Andrew made a face. "Still sore. But not 'falling down' sore. The sleep was good. I was talking to Willow just now. They haven't found him."

"I know. You told me."

"Oh goody."

Dust glared at him. "Andrew, please just be civil to yourself. And I know that sounds weird but..."

Andrew sighed. "Okay, okay. Fine."

"We won't be here for that long. Buffy will find him, and we'll be off, and this will all be like a bad dream."

He snorted. "True. I'm going to grab a sandwich and put my bag back in order. There are magical items in there that probably shouldn't be touching each other for any amount of time."

"So sorry. I didn't have time to repack them while you were bleeding to death."

"Dust..."

"I'm not just going to _forget_!"

There was an awkward silence, as they glared at each other. Then Andrew calmed himself somewhat. "I'm not asking you to forget. Just... after. The potentials are probably listening to us, you know. _I'm_ probably listening to us."

Dust bit his lip. "Fine. Okay. Look, I'll make your sandwich. You should probably get the bag cleaned up. See you in the basement?"

"I... thanks."

Dust gave him an exasperated look. "No problem."

* * *

Young Andrew descended the basement steps carefully and hovered vaguely at the bottom, watching himself carefully laying out items and repacking them into the knapsack. When the older version of himself didn't offer any discouragement, he wandered a little closer. "Uh, hi." 

Older Andrew seemed to take a deep breath. He turned slightly from what he was doing and nodded to his younger self, his expression carefully blank. "Hello."

Younger Andrew took the lack of visible anger as encouragement. "Uh. We probably didn't get off on the right foot back then. You were obviously very tired, and all..."

Older Andrew concentrated on filling a small box with polished stones. "I was tired, yes."

"And injured. How is that, by the way?"

"Better."

"Oh. Well. Good." He rocked on the back of his feet.

"Fine." The box filled, he stowed it carefully in the bottom of the bag.

"So... what are you doing?"

Older Andrew twitched. "Repacking." Unable to resist, he added, "Obviously."

His younger self didn't seem to notice the sarcasm. "It looks like you've picked up some interesting stuff in your travels."

Several zip-locked bags were carefully closed. "A bit, yes. Was the TV program over?"

Younger Andrew looked hopeful. "Oh yes. I mean, I normally don't watch chat shows, but this was really good. It was about..."

Older Andrew cut in, sounding annoyed. "Yes, okay. I'm sure it was great."

There was an awkward silence. So far, reflected the elder of the two, the day had been full of them. He grabbed the next package and unrolled it to unveil a collection of six wicked looking daggers.

Younger Andrew looked suitably impressed. "Wow."

Another twitch, and the voice was tinged with sarcasm again. "You're impressed by a lot of daggers. Wonderful."

"I'm not impressed. I'm just... Can you fight with all of them?"

His future self looked at him, irritated. "They're mostly ceremonial. For rituals. The two on the end are the only ones that are combat knives."

"But you know how to use them, right?"

Older Andrew gritted his teeth. "I know how to use them. But I don't. Not often."

The younger Andrew's eyes sparkled. "Oh, I see. You've made a promise not to use such fatal weapons so our soul is never again scarred by..."

And he snapped. "Will you shut up!"

Young Andrew stepped back, startled. "I..."

"I don't not use them because of some stupid promise! I don't use them because I'm not very good at using them. Why would you even think that I would be? Are _you_ any good at fighting?!"

"N... no. But I thought if you had a lot of practice."

"I had hours of practice! This means I managed to claw my way up from being 'really, really, bad' to being 'just about average'. I'm still no damn good at it! And it's still far safer for me to run the hell away! I use these when I'm desperate, and _only_ then! Do you have to be such an idiot?"

His younger self stared at him for a few seconds, eyes glistening. Then he turned and fled up the stairs.

Fuming, Andrew watched him go. Then he deflated and dropped his head into his hands. "Okay," he murmured to himself, "Now Dust is really going to kill me."

* * *

Willow frowned at the screen and tapped in a few more letters. She thought she'd found the first demon, but suspected that she'd need a few more details on the latter ones. Still, it wasn't horribly urgent; she could let Buffy sleep for a little longer before interrogating... 

She heard a sob, and looked up just in time to see Andrew the younger go running past her towards the back door. What the heck?

"Andrew."

"Go away!"

"Andrew!" This was more like an order, and a basic niggling fear Andrew still had of her forced him to a standstill. Willow strode up, ignoring the potentials that were staring bug-eyed from the other room. "What's going on?"

"NothingI'mfine."

"Uh-huh. Look..."

"I just want to be alone, okay?"

Willow stared at him, and felt a twinge of sympathy. She'd seen how the Elder Andrew had reacted before; no doubt this was something similar. "Look, I don't have a problem with that. But I don't think you should be going outside right now. Tucker's still out there, remember."

He sniffed. "Oh."

"Hey, it's okay. Just... You can sit in Dawn's room, okay? Just for a while."

He hesitated, nodded, and scrambled up the stairs.

* * *

"I can't believe you did that!" 

Andrew stared at a small wooden flute as though it held the answers to the universe. "Sorry."

Dust stabbed the sandwich he was holding with a butter knife and stared at his companion in disgust. "I asked you to be civil _two seconds ago_! I cannot believe you couldn't even maintain it for that long!"

"You don't know what he said..."

"Oh come _on_ Andrew. I heard what he said before and it in no way warranted..."

Anything else he was about to say was abruptly cut off by a scream of terror from somewhere else in the house.

Dust froze. "That was you."

They took the stairs two at a time.

* * *


	13. Part Eleven

_Thanks to niannah and Erica Olson for the beta._

**Part Eleven**

_"But you can get no answers  
And you feel no pain  
And the strangest feeling  
It's coming around again  
Blowing in like thunder  
And it's coming low  
You gotta keep your head down  
And take it blow by blow"_  
Blow by Blow - John Farnham

"What happened? What happened?"

"Andrew?"

"Is he okay?"

Dust and Andrew burst out of the basement to find that the younger Andrew was currently the focus of the entire household. Willow had him by the shoulders and was attempting a conversation, but to Dust's relief, there didn't appear to be anything immediately wrong with him other than the fact that he looked as though he'd just run the 30 second mile.

Dust's Andrew slipped out from behind him and hurried forward. "What happened?"

Willow look up at him, her face half bemused and half concerned. " I don't know. He ran down the steps so fast he nearly tripped and cracked his head open. I just caught him." She turned to her charge. "Andrew? Come on, talk to us here..."

Younger Andrew was white as a feather. "Hewasthere!"

The elder Andrew swept his eyes over his other self, checking for injuries. "He was there?"

"Tucker was there! I saw him!"

A ripple of concern passed over the gathered crowd.

Willow looked alarmed. "Tucker was in the house?"

"No! At the window! Right in front of me! He looked at me, and then he ran away!"

"Tucker was at the _window_? And he ran away?" The expressions on several people's faces were sliding into scepticism.

"He was! I saw him! I'm not lying!"

Willow patted him on the back hurriedly. "No one's saying you're lying, Andrew. But you are under a lot of stress..."

"He was there! He _was_..."

"Okay, what is going on here?" The crowd look up to find Buffy standing at the top of the steps, looking tired and unimpressed.

Andrew saw another chance to be validated. "Tucker was here. They don't trust me but I wasn't seeing things! I swear I saw him! I mean, he might be miles away now, but he was here!"

She frowned. "Okay, everyone into the living room, and let's hear what happened."

* * *

"I went up to Dawn's room because I was feeling all upset because I practically got insulted for no reason by _someone_." Andrew sat on the armchair and looked far less terrified, but just a little more stricken than was entirely believable. Dust didn't need to turn his head to know that his Andrew would be rolling his eyes just about now. Younger Andrew, for his part, was gathering up all of his self-righteousness. "I mean, I was just asking questions! Some people have to learn to not be so snarky when they..."

"Andrew," Buffy glared at him from the sofa where she sat with Willow and the newly awoken Spike. "Get to the point."

He pouted. "Okay, okay. I went up to Dawn's room and I just sat staring out the window for a bit. After a minute I thought I heard something from outside under the window, like something was on the trestle thing that the plants were supposed to grow on. Is trestle the right word? I'm not sure..."

"Andrew!"

"Sorry! I'm sorry! So I went up to the window to see what it was..."

His Andrew snorted slightly and murmured, "And there's a priceless idea," in a voice that could barely be heard. Dust elbowed him in the ribs and favoured him with a scowl.

"...then Tucker just popped his head right up!"

Willow nodded. "So you screamed?"

"Well, no. Not then. I was so terrified I just froze."

Buffy looked at him with faint disbelief. "You froze in front of the insane madman?"

"I was really scared, okay? I mean, he was looking right at me! And that's the weird thing! He didn't even try to get me or anything. He just kept staring at me and I kept staring at him. And then he..."

Buffy looked at him expectantly. "Then he?"

"Then he said. 'Thanks, little brother', and he dropped out of sight. Then I screamed, and ran down the stairs."

Willow raised an eyebrow. "Okay. That's strange. Assuming that this is true and not some kind of hallucination..."

"It's not a hallucination!"

"But why wouldn't he try and get you if you were right in his sights?" she said reasonably. "With only a piece of glass separating you?"

Spike looked thoughtful. "You got those magic charms you put in the walls the other day, right?"

"Those? Oh! Yes. They're more alarms than anything threatening, though. I'm... working my way up."

"He mightn't've known that though. If he just felt the magic, he could have thought that it was something more nasty. Didn't want to risk breaking the window in case there was feedback. Figured he'd be better off waiting to catch Andrew outside."

Buffy bit her lip. "Okay, that could be true. If, as you said, it's not some kind of hallucination..."

"But why did he _thank_ me?"

Spike shrugged. "He's messing with your head. It's what your basic evil guy does. I know I did, anyway."

Buffy looked mildly irritated. "I suppose we could see if he's around the area still, if he ever was. I wish Spike could identify him by smell."

"Kinda wish that myself. It's disturbing, the whole 'lack of scent' thing"

"Maybe Willow could do some kind of spell to see if he was really there..."

"I guess I could try. I don't want to do anything too taxing, though."

"Willow, I'm sure it wouldn't be..."

"I told you he was there. Why does everyone think I'm lying?"

Dust raised a hand.

Buffy looked at him. "Yes? Dust, is it?"

He nodded. "You have checked for footprints outside the window, right?"

There was an awkward silence.

Then Buffy coughed self-consciously. "Well, obviously we were about to do that too," she said.

* * *

"Damn." Buffy pulled herself up from examining the footprints in the garden bed.

Willow looked sympathetic. "I think damn about covers it. It's quite tactful."

Buffy rubbed her eyes. "Y'know, I was really, really hoping that this was just another one of Andrew's stories. Not even because having the insane killer near us is bad. Just because I sincerely need the sleep."

"There's no chance that they're Dawn's footprints, right?" Willow bent down to look again. "Ah. No, not really."

"What gave it away, the size or the claw imprints?"

Dust fidgeted worriedly behind them both. "So what are we supposed to do about it? Are you going to do a search for him again?"

Buffy straightened up. "Not a full scale one, no. I'm down one vampire in daylight, and it doesn't sound like Tucker stayed around anyway. God knows what he was trying to do, but it doesn't look like he's succeeded."

"But he did say thank you..."

Willow looked thoughtful. "It's weird, yes. But it could be just like Spike said, evil head-messing. The bad guys do tend to do that a lot."

"But what if it's not?"

"If it's not." Buffy's voice brooked no argument. "Then there's not a lot we can do about it right now. You guys should go back to the house. I'll do a scan, be back in half an hour or so."

Dust opened his mouth to argue, and closed it when he saw her face. On reflection, he decided, she was probably being quite sensible. She did make a habit of that.

* * *

In the absence of any immediate threat the household calmed down once more. Spike had expressed his intention to 'sod this' and go off to bed. The potentials had crowded into the living room and were chatting excitedly, while Willow was again trying diligently to identify last night's demon corpses on her laptop. 

Both Andrews sat at the table with her looking tense and giving each other nasty glances, and Dust sat with them for all of two minutes before he couldn't stand it any more and marched determinedly back to the kitchen to try some more lunch preparation. After all, he reasoned to himself, if Andrew was going to insist on being like this, it wasn't as though Dust had to sit by and pretend that he condoned it. He was a companion, he was a _partner_. He wasn't a... a... _lackey_. Okay, the younger Andrew kept making these irritating comments... but he was young. It wasn't like he really meant what he was saying, it was just the... youngness.

Dust frowned at the sandwich steak he'd plunked onto a cutting board and then wandered over to the cutlery drawer to find a knife. Younger Andrew's shriek had caused him to drop his earlier sandwiches, so he'd decided for something slightly more challenging this time. There was still some salad left, so he figured he could add that to the... and the... the hell?

He pulled the dagger from the drawer and blinked at it. Okay. That was a little odd. Who the hell had decided that ancient ceremonial blades were appropriate cooking utensils? It looked kind of ritualistic too; what if someone accidentally summoned something hideous while they were trying to make their medium-rare-with-a-side-of-fries? Maybe he should go put it somewhe--

"Oh, you're making steak sandwiches? You can make me one too. Andrew, the little one, keeps trying to force defrosted stew on me and it's getting tiring."

He jumped and dropped the dagger back in the drawer. "Anya."

"Yes, that's me. You're a very jumpy person, you know. Or is it only around me? I haven't done anything hideous to you in the future, have I?"

He abandoned the drawer for now and smiled at her awkwardly. "Uh, no. Sorry. I'm just... I'm a little stressed out at the moment."

"Well, that's understandable; someone is trying to kill you. I've got demon assassins periodically trying to kill me too, you know. I'm finding it very nerve-racking."

"That's bad."

"Oh, it is. Though I'm sure I'd feel much better having been fed, preferably with steak sandwiches."

He blinked. "Oh? Oh, right." He turned back to the meat. Maybe he could fry it up first and cut off the fat later. It'd be easier, and it wasn't like he was watching his weight.

Anya sat herself on one of the benches and watched his meal preparations approvingly. "You're quite good at this. I can see why Andrew would like having you around."

The bluntness was going to take some getting used to, he suspected. "Thank you? You should probably say 'Anthony' with the potentials in the next room, you know."

"They've gone all silly and giggly. I really don't think they're listening. How long have you been with him, anyway?"

"I'm not actually _with_..."

"Yes, yes, of course you're not." She sounded suspiciously disbelieving about this, he thought. "How long have you been wandering around with him, then?"

"Three years. Well, three and a half years, almost. I came from this little sub-dimension. You probably haven't heard of it, it's quite small. And it's not very interesting, just a lot of farmers and small villages. My village was called Scathck."

"It certainly does sound very boring," agreed Anya helpfully.

He couldn't help but grin at her. "Well, it really was. I basically begged Andrew to let me tag along with him. I just had to get out of there."

"And it's a lot more interesting with Andrew."

"It's about ten thousand times more interesting. I'm not exaggerating."

"Oh, well then." Anya smiled at him in a way that didn't quite seem sincere, and then frowned very slightly. "You must be quite close to him."

Dust looked at her suspiciously. "Look, we're _really_ not..."

She waved a hand vaguely in the air. "No, I'm not talking about that. I was just..." Her face held the expression of someone who is trying very, very hard to be tactful, while simultaneously knowing that they are very, very bad at doing this. "You must have... talked a lot, right?"

Dust looked at her uncomprehendingly. He suspected that there was an important point that she was trying to get to, but it was completely eluding him at the moment. "Yes?"

"About all types of things. What you've been doing with your lives, in fact. That might be the type of thing you'd talk about."

"Well, yes. That is one of the things. We've talked about a lot of things."

"From the past. A lot of things from the past?"

"...Yes?"

"Yes." Anya nodded seriously. "Things that might have happened around this time in the past, even. Perhaps... a few weeks ago?"

He stared at her blankly. What was she...

Oh. Oh wait. She was talking about... She didn't think he even... _Oh_. Why was she... He didn't want to think about this right now. There was too much to think about right now, really important things like saving the damn world, for heaven's sake and he'd _told_ Andrew. _His_ Andrew. Three and a half years ago he'd told him that it didn't matter and that it was in the past and he wasn't going to bring it up and...

Except that this was the past. And it hadn't happened all that long ago, not at this point. And he'd been avoiding thinking about, deliberately pushing it to the back of his mind because, when it came right down to it _he didn't want to know_. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to admit that he might know why Andrew was acting the way he was. And Andrew _shouldn't_ be acting the way he was, for god's sake. Andrew had been young, and he'd been stupid, and it wasn't as though he hadn't done other things with questionable morality. Dust had done things with questionable morality _with_ him. This wasn't such a damn big deal. Dust wasn't bringing it up, and he wasn't saying anything, and he wasn't letting it affect his judgement. He damn well _wasn't_ and why the hell was Andrew being such a...

For heaven's sake, what was the point of picking at scabs?

Dust bit his lip and looked at her tightly. "I know."

She looked slightly surprised. "Look, we are on the same wavelength here, aren't we? You do mean you know about Jona..."

"Yes I _know_, for god's sake. You think I wouldn't? We've been travelling together for three and a half years! I trust him, he trusts me, we tell each other this kind of thing!"

"Oh." She blinked. "Fair enough. Look, I hope you're not thinking that I'm passing judgement here. I mean, I'm responsible for quite a lot of people dying myself, I certainly wasn't trying to..."

"It was one of the _first_ things he told me, okay? Before I even started travelling with him. He told me three and a half years ago. I practically begged him to be able to follow along and he said that he wasn't going to let me until he told me the kind of person he'd... But I told him it didn't matter. It was a stupid mistake. Everyone makes stupid mistakes. You can forgive stupid mistakes. He's a good person. He does good things. It happened in the past and it's over. That's it. Okay? Fine?" He yanked the pan off the stove and dropped the sandwich steak on a plate. It was a stupid conversation, the whole thing. It was irrelevant.

"Well, that's good then."

"Good." He buttered a piece of bread with just a little bit more force than was strictly necessary.

"I think it's really nice, actually. That you're so loyal. I mean, some people would let that type of thing get between then, but not you!"

"Right!" He applied salad. Salad was good.

"You must be great friends. I mean, I have to say, if I was in your position personally I might not be as nice about it, especially considering how much you look like him."

Dust blinked incomprehensively. "I don't look like Andrew."

She smiled reassuringly. "Oh, not Andrew, Jonathan."

"...What?"

"I mean, it's obvious that you're different people, but it is rather uncanny. You're both fairly short, and you've got the hair colour, and your build is about right."

"I..."

"I mean, if it were me I'd find it rather creepy that I looked so much like the guy my good friend slaughtered, but obviously you've gotten beyond that. I think it's admirable." She gave him a playful punch. "More people in the world should be that tolerant; we'd all be better off!"

"I look like..."

She looked approvingly at the sandwich he'd finished making and took it from under his unprotesting hands. "Thank you for the lunch, anyway. It looks delicious. You should probably make your own now. I'm just going to go and see what the potentials are talking about. It was nice talking to you."

He stared. "Right," he said. "Nice talking to you too."

She beamed and gave him a friendly pat on the back before wandering off.

* * *

Willow shifted awkwardly and concentrated on her laptop, carefully trying to ignore the two Andrews that were currently staring daggers at each other at the end of the table. The tension was getting palpable at this point. Half of her was beginning to wonder whether it might be a good idea to intervene, while the other half was almost scared of what might happen if she did.

Happily, Buffy walked in and saved her from having to make the decision. She looked annoyed.

Willow tried to look sympathetic. "No luck?"

"No sign of him."

The older Andrew bit his lip. "What did he think he was doing? There must have been a reason for showing up here."

The younger one sounded distinctly sulky. "'Cause he's turned into an evil person. Duh."

Elder Andrew glowered. "There are deeper reasons out there than 'Gosh, he's evil'."

"Well of course you'd know, because you're just sooo much better than--"

"All right, stop it. Now. Both of you." Buffy glared at them until young Andrew sunk back into his chair sullenly and the elder one stood up and pretended to be very interested in Willow's laptop. "Thank you." She turned back to Willow, pointedly ignoring them both. "Look, I don't know what his deal was, but I'm getting pretty sick of just missing him. I'm going to get some sleep, and then we're going to have a meeting and discuss strategy. There's got to be something more productive we can do here."

"I could try some magic. I've been practicing, a little. There might be a tracking spell that will stick, though he's proving kind of slippery."

"And he's moving around a lot. Still, if you could see if you can find something--"

Elder Andrew's head snapped up from the laptop screen and he said sharply. "What are you researching here?"

Buffy narrowed her eyes at him. "If you don't mind--"

"Uh." Willow frowned and shot Buffy a placating look. Future Andrew was looking worryingly concerned. "They're descriptions of the demon corpses that Buffy and Spike found last night, the ones Tucker ate. I've been trying to find something about them. You know something--?"

The concern shifted ever so slightly to something like horror, and Willow felt cold. Andrew picked up her laptop and jabbed a finger at one of her descriptions. "_This_ is one of the demons he ate?"

Buffy crossed her arms and looked at him steadily. "Ugly, green, brown warts and blue lips? That's it."

And for just a second, Andrew went white. Then he turned and grabbed his rucksack from the corner of the room. "Get Spike. We have to get to the school."

Buffy was incredulous. "I'm sorry, you're telling me to--?"

"We have to get to the school! _Now_!"

"And you're going to have to explain yourself before I'm going _anywhere_."

"There's no time."

"Then make some time! I'm sorry if this hasn't occurred to you, but you are not one of my best friends here and I'm not rushing into panic mode just on your say-so!"

He glowered at her for several seconds and then seemed to visibly reel himself in. "That demon," he said, "Is a Seethash. It has a wonderfully useful ability that allows it to learn the patterns of its prey. It can see history."

"See history?"

"People's history. Animal's history. The history of living things. All it needs to do is look at someone and it knows every prior move that person or animal has taken in their lives. Not why they did it. Not what they were thinking. Just what they did."

Willow's eyes widened. "Tucker ate this thing."

"Tucker got its abilities. And Tucker looked at him." He nodded to his younger self. "At _me_."

Buffy frowned. "What has this got to do with the schoo--"

"The Seal of Danzalthar." Willow looked appalled. And Buffy's eyes widened in understanding.

Andrew's voice was grim. "The Seal of Danzalthar. He knows how to open it. And if you think he's hard to fight now? You don't want to know what he's going to be like when he's chomped down on a Turok-han."


End file.
